AMY GOODMAN: And you are listening to Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, here with Juan González. Welcome, Juan.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Good day, Amy, and to our listeners around the country. We’ve got a jam-packed show today.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s right. And we’re going to move right to it right now.

Key Republican legislators this week introduced a bill barring the United States from virtually ever dealing with a new global criminal court. The legislation would deny American military aid to any country ratifying the international treaty on the court. This comes as the Clinton administration is seeking ironclad guarantees from its allies that U.S. soldiers will not be prosecuted for war crimes by the court.

The International Criminal Court is expected to set up in about two years in The Hague, Netherlands. Some 120 countries approved the court statutes at a conference in Rome two years ago. Since then, 97 have signed the treaty, and 12 countries, including France and Italy, have ratified it. The U.S. was among seven nations, including Iraq and China, that voted against it.

We’re joined on the phone now by Ambassador David Scheffer, who is the U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes.

Welcome to Democracy Now!

DAVID SCHEFFER: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you give us the main reasons the U.S. has been opposing the war crimes court?

DAVID SCHEFFER: Well, first, that’s the misrepresentation that has perpetuated for two years. We are not opposing the permanent International Criminal Court. In fact, we were one of the major negotiators of the Rome Treaty. And we have always stated our position, that there should be a permanent International Criminal Court. And it’s one of the reasons why we’re still so deeply involved in the negotiations that continue in New York on the supplemental documents to the treaty. We just want to get it right. That’s all.

And what we’re trying to do right now, without any proposal whatsoever to amend the Rome Treaty, is to work out a procedure that would enable the United States, during those years that we are a nonparty to the treaty, to be able to work in harmony with the court and also fulfill our responsibilities globally, that no other nation in its totality has with respect to international peace and security and the protection of human rights. So, what we’re trying to do is to ensure that while we are a nonparty to the treaty — and that will be for a number of years, given the current conditions in Washington — that our armed forces, if they are subject — if any particular member of our armed forces is subject to a request for surrender to the court to stand trial, that we have the right as a nonparty to the treaty to consent to or deny that particular procedure. That does not mean that the soldier avoids the rule of law. He’s still stuck in some other jurisdiction and will obviously be subject to the rule of law, either there or, if circumstances permit, back here in the United States.

So, that’s how narrow the issue is right now. And it really is a false representation to say that the United States is acting in opposition or opposed to this treaty.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But, Ambassador, if so many other countries that have agreed to the setup of the court are willing to submit their soldiers to its jurisdiction, why would our government not want to do that?

DAVID SCHEFFER: Because we know that for a number of years we will not be party to the statute. Now, if you want to understand that, you know, call up the United States Senate. But that’s going to be the reality. That’s the reality. That’s not theory. It’s reality. So, during those years in which we are not a party to the treaty — we’re not talking about our party status here. We’re not seeking to change the treaty, to change the circumstances if we were a party to the treaty. We’re just talking about those years that we are not a party to the treaty. We do not believe it is justified, under international law or otherwise, to subject our armed forces to a court to which we are not a party to it yet. That is the sole, single and only issue that is outstanding. And unfortunately, nongovernmental organizations and some journalists who are working off two-year-old information continue to think that there’s more to it than that. That’s it.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And in terms of this bill introduced by some Republican legislators, I would assume that the administration is opposed to it. But if you could explain particularly why you would be opposed to it?

DAVID SCHEFFER: Well, we’re not reaching any conclusions yet, you know, with respect to our specific posture towards this legislation. After all, we only received it a couple of days ago, when it was publicly, you know, announced. We were not consulted in advance regarding the legislation. So, this requires more evaluation.

But I will say this, that it is a rather counterintuitive piece of legislation, because right now we are seeking to obtain the very provision in the supplemental documents to this treaty that the Senate wants us to try to get. And in order to do that, we have to negotiate. It is counterintuitive to introduce legislation that undermines those negotiations. So, all I can say is that, you know, we’ll deal with the legislation as the days progress. But right now we need to achieve the very objective that, on a bipartisan basis, both the administration and members of Congress want us to achieve up here.

AMY GOODMAN: Ambassador Scheffer, what’s to stop war criminals from other countries from moving to the United States so they can enjoy the protections of those living in the United States, say, getting a green card, whatever, and saying, then, they will not be subject to an International Criminal Court?

DAVID SCHEFFER: That’s — don’t ask me questions about the legislation, because I didn’t draft it. That’s a very good question —

AMY GOODMAN: Not legislation.

DAVID SCHEFFER: That’s a very good question to ask the drafters of the legislation.

AMY GOODMAN: But I’m not talking about the Republicans, because, in one sense, in the bigger sense, the Pentagon, the Clinton administration, the Republicans don’t disagree that much on this. They — you all have been a major force in fighting the International Criminal Court.

DAVID SCHEFFER: That’s not true. See, that, again, is the misrepresentation. If that were true, why would we be here? We have been here negotiating for the last two years, making major contributions to the supplemental documents to this treaty.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, aren’t you in a —

DAVID SCHEFFER: So, why — how could that possibly be interpreted as opposing?

AMY GOODMAN: Well, aren’t you in an embarrassing position, really, because you have all of these countries that approved the court statutes — 97 have signed the treaty, just France yesterday, I believe — but the U.S. among the very great minority, seven nations, including Iraq and China, to vote against it?

DAVID SCHEFFER: Look, it’s not embarrassing to get it right. And oftentimes in these multilateral negotiations, it is the United States that has to basically exercise the courage to get it right. And we don’t apologize for that. We have to get this treaty right. And, you know, you can look at any of our major allies and their contributions to peacekeeping. And still, the numbers of soldiers that they have in exposed positions outside their country pales in comparison to the number of soldiers that the United States has deployed around the world, which exceeds 200,000.

AMY GOODMAN: But we’re not just talking about soldiers. Of course, this kind of exemption would also stand for U.S. officials. So, when you have U.S. officials providing weapons to notorious human rights-abusing regimes, for example, they, too, would be off-limits for the International Criminal Court, but in regular criminal law might be considered accomplices to murder.

DAVID SCHEFFER: And would always be subject to that under regular criminal law. But if we were a party to the treaty, we’re not seeking any particular protection as a state party to the treaty. All we’re saying is that as a nonparty to the treaty, we’re in a different category than if we were a party to the treaty. That is all we are saying. So don’t extrapolate any theory into state party status when you argue your case.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much for being with us, Ambassador David Scheffer, U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes, speaking to us from Washington, D.C. We made the agreement that Ambassador Scheffer did not want to speak with the opposition, to be engaged in a debate, but we are going to turn to them now. Richard Dicker is counsel to Human Rights Watch and the leader of its campaign for the International Criminal Court here in New York. He’s at the United Nations. And William Pace is a convener of the NGO Coalition for an International Criminal Court.

Richard Dicker, can you explain this point of the U.S. not being a party to the treaty?

RICHARD DICKER: Yeah, certainly. But, Amy, first, I have to say I have a great deal of respect for Ambassador David Scheffer. He has done terrific work in other areas on behalf of international justice, from Rwanda to Sierra Leone to Cambodia. The problem here is that he, but, more importantly, the Clinton administration, is dead wrong.

What’s going on in these negotiations, I believe, is that the U.S. is seeking, as Ambassador Scheffer said, some kind of 100% guarantee that no U.S. national would ever appear before this court. That kind of exemption for Americans is totally contradictory to the principle of equal application of law. And secondly, it is totally contradictory to the practice of international law that the U.S. engages in.

Ambassador Scheffer’s comment about the nonparty status of the U.S., I think, is misleading in the sense that the U.S. government is party to many, many treaties that give courts authority to try citizens from other states that are not party to those treaties. The United States Department of Justice, as a tenet of its anti-terrorism policy, would try a Libyan or a Lebanese citizen for a hijacking offense, regardless of whether Libya or Lebanon have signed that treaty or ratified that treaty.

So, I think what we are talking about here is an exemption for Americans that is contrary to the notion of law and, I think, poses an impossible burden on the many states, and certainly NGOs, who want the U.S. government to be on board and supportive of this treaty.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Richard Dicker, what about the ambassador’s argument that because the United States has far more troops abroad than any other nation, that it’s, in essence, in a special situation?

RICHARD DICKER: Well, I think that’s a fair point. And I think that is really at the heart of the Pentagon’s opposition, which I take to be rooted in the belief that, as the world’s sole superpower, the U.S. will have to deploy its troops in not multilateral ways, but unilateral ways. For example, an invasion of Panama again in the future — I’m referring to the 1989 invasion of Panama — that it would need to do on a unilateral basis, and that it wants protection for acts that other states may not regard as being within international criminal law. I do think that is at the heart of what is driving the Pentagon’s opposition to the establishment of this court, or the establishment of a court that would have independence and effectiveness from the permanent members of the Security Council.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But should —

RICHARD DICKER: Let me just — to answer your question, the point is, this treaty is loaded with safeguards. Ambassador Scheffer has been very successful in obtaining concessions, both at the Rome Treaty Conference and here in New York, since February of ’99 in loading the treaty with safeguards that address those concerns.

AMY GOODMAN: Richard Dicker, we have to break for stations to identify themselves. Richard Dicker is with Human Rights Watch. When we come back, we’ll wrap up the conversation with him and William Pace, a part of the NGO Coalition for an International Criminal Court. Then we’ll go to Daniel Ellsberg to find out his reaction to an Intelligence Committee bill that would increase the penalty for government workers who leak information to the press. Finally, we’ll have a debate on a terrorism commission series of recommendations that would increase the powers of the FBI and CIA and increase surveillance of foreign students. You’re listening to Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now! Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: You’re listening to Pacific Radio’s Democracy Now!, the Exception to the Rulers. I’m Amy Goodman, here with Juan González. A lot to do today. We’ll be talking to Daniel Ellsberg in a minute. But on this issue of the International Criminal Court that is being taken up at the United Nations right now, we have guests: Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch, William Pace, convener of the NGO Coalition for an International Criminal Court. How are you dealing with the U.S.’s opposition to the court, William Pace?

WILLIAM PACE: Well, the NGO coalition, which has existed for the last five years and now comprises more than a thousand organizations of global civil society, has taken a position in that it is in principle opposed to the U.S. proposal because it would reopen the Rome Statute, because it is a reversal, after 55 years, by the United States on a fundamental Nuremberg principle, that official acts should never be allowed to be an excuse for individuals committing a war crime or genocide or crimes against humanity.

Our efforts will be to continue to work with the overwhelming majority of governments from around the world, who agreed that we finally need to have a court to enforce the Geneva Conventions and the Genocide Conventions, both of which the United States have been members of for decades. So these are not new laws that the United States has to agree to; it’s just a court that will finally enforce it. It will only enforce it, incidentally, when a nation refuses to deal with it themselves. The United States has a functioning military and civil legal system. So all the United States would have to do if an accusation is made is say, “We’ll investigate. We’ll prosecute.”

The fact that the United States is saying, “We don’t even want our soldiers to be able to be accused,” is unacceptable. And it is an effort, finally, after all these years, to try once again for the United States to say, “We want to be treated differently than everyone else in the world.” And that’s what the other governments — it’s not the nongovernmental organizations that are saying no to the United States; it’s the other governments in the world that are saying no.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But, Mr. Pace, I’d like to ask you the same question I asked Richard Dicker, because what I don’t understand about Ambassador Scheffer’s argument is that this argument that because the United States has so many more soldiers abroad, that it’s in a special category, shouldn’t the question really be: Why do we have so many soldiers abroad, and why are we involved in so many military actions, especially in a world where there is no major threat to U.S. security looming on the horizon?

WILLIAM PACE: Well, I think, of course, that is one of the questions. But I do think it is another form of xenophobiaism that the United States is capable of thinking that other countries value the lives of their soldiers less. And France and the United Kingdom and the Netherlands and Australia, all of these countries that also contribute more, they do more peacekeeping than the United States does. They’ve looked at the statute, and they believe it provides enough safeguards and protections for their militaries.

AMY GOODMAN: What does the opposition, the U.S. opposition, actually concretely mean for the establishment of this court? Can it move forward? Is it being established? Does it matter if the U.S. ratifies it or not?

WILLIAM PACE: This is unlike the law of the sea, where the United States and other countries were able to stay out and prevent governments from going forward with bringing it into force, because they knew it wouldn’t work without their support. In this instance, every one of the Americans’ chief allies are going forward with it. And therefore, it is our belief that the court not only will enter into force in another two to three years, but that there will be enough support for it in terms of all of the legal and financial and intelligence and other resources. And I think that is a tremendous threat to the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: Regular people who are listening to this show around the country — this is something that’s being established at the United Nations — can they have any say? Can they weigh in, Richard Dicker? What’s the most effective thing people can do?

RICHARD DICKER: Well, I think the public in this country who cares about stopping genocide and crimes against humanity and war crimes, that have so horrified people here and around the world over the last few years, can weigh in, certainly, with the president, can weigh in with their elected representatives, and send the message that there is no reason for the United States to stand outside this effort. That would be very important to do at this particular juncture and after this session is over on June 30th.

I think what we are anticipating is a situation where the United States, as Bill just said, will be so isolated from all of its closest allies. Seventeen of the 19 NATO members are well on their way to ratifying this treaty. And at the end of the day, it’s unnecessary for the U.S. to stand to the side or possibly oppose this court, because it has already received the assurances it had asked for during the Rome Conference and since the Rome Conference.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us. William Pace, convener of the NGO Coalition for an International Criminal Court, is there a place people can go on the web to get more information? And Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch, I know your website is hrw.org.

WILLIAM PACE: ICC Now is the website address for the coalition’s internet.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s ICC Now. I want to thank you both very much for being with us.