A related issue under discussion among administration officials is whether the United States should soften its longstanding objection to the court exercising jurisdiction over citizens from a country that is not a party to its treaty, according to officials.
On the table is whether those decisions should instead depend on whether a particular country has a functioning justice system that can handle allegations of war crimes. The rationale is that it would be legitimate for the court to investigate Russian war crimes because Mr. Putin and his commanders appear to be committing them with domestic impunity.
Pentagon officials, however, are said to be balking. They contended that moving to a case-by-case approach would be shortsighted because it would make it harder for the United States to argue against court investigations into potential war crimes by American forces, officials said.
And in a Washington Post opinion column last week, John Bellinger, a national security lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, and Christopher J. Dodd, a former Democratic senator who was responsible for adding the exception to the 2002 law, argued that âU.S. support for an I.C.C. investigation of Russian war crimes would not constitute a double standard or be inconsistent with U.S. objections to the courtâs claimed jurisdiction over U.S. personnel.
âWhile most of the worldâs democracies joined the court a generation ago â including close U.S. allies like Britain â many American leaders were wary, fearing that it could be used or misused someday to prosecute American forces. (...)
Relations plunged during the Trump administration, when a top prosecutor for the court tried to investigate the torture of terrorism detainees during the Bush administration. The government imposed sanctions on court personnel, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced it as corrupt. (...)
A related issue under discussion among administration officials is whether the United States should soften its longstanding objection to the court exercising jurisdiction over citizens from a country that is not a party to its treaty, according to officials.
On the table is whether those decisions should instead depend on whether a particular country has a functioning justice system that can handle allegations of war crimes. The rationale is that it would be legitimate for the court to investigate Russian war crimes because Mr. Putin and his commanders appear to be committing them with domestic impunity.
Pentagon officials, however, are said to be balking. They contended that moving to a case-by-case approach would be shortsighted because it would make it harder for the United States to argue against court investigations into potential war crimes by American forces, officials said.
And in a Washington Post opinion column last week, John Bellinger, a national security lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, and Christopher J. Dodd, a former Democratic senator who was responsible for adding the exception to the 2002 law, argued that âU.S. support for an I.C.C. investigation of Russian war crimes would not constitute a double standard or be inconsistent with U.S. objections to the courtâs claimed jurisdiction over U.S. personnel.
âWhile most of the worldâs democracies joined the court a generation ago â including close U.S. allies like Britain â many American leaders were wary, fearing that it could be used or misused someday to prosecute American forces. (...)
Relations plunged during the Trump administration, when a top prosecutor for the court tried to investigate the torture of terrorism detainees during the Bush administration. The government imposed sanctions on court personnel, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced it as corrupt. (...)
