State Dept Says Pentagon Is Preventing Cooperation with the International Court
by | Jun 1, 2023
A State Department official told Congress the Pentagon is preventing the US government from working with the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute Russians for the invasion of Ukraine.
Several Senators on the Foreign Relations Committee pressed Beth Van Schaack, ambassador-at-large for Global Criminal Justice, to name the Department of Defense as holding up cooperation with the ICC. Committee chairman, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), said, “The State Department has encouraged working with the [International Criminal Court] ICC to bring Putin to justice. It is no secret that Department of Defense is the holdup.”
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) asserted the Pentagon was the issue and asked Van Schaack to affirm his statement. “But the Defense Department is clearly dragging their feet.” He asked, “It’s just a yes or no, right? The Defense Department is not cooperating?”
The ambassador replied, “Yes.” She went on to say the DoD was withholding helpful information. “There is a range of very actionable information that [the US has] been able to collect that might be very helpful to a justice process anywhere,” Van Schaack said, But, without the DOD’s consent, “we can’t share it with the ICC.”
Menendez said the Pentagon’s refusal to aid the State Department is unacceptable. “The Defense Department does not get to pick and choose which laws it will obey.” He continued, “The United States needs to provide full support for investigations that could lead to holding Russian officials accountable.”
The chairman requested a Department of Defense official attend the hearing, but the agency was unrepresented on Wednesday.
In March, the New York Times reported the DoD was dissenting to a Joe Biden administration plan to use the ICC to target Russians due to the precedent it could set for American military personnel.
Washington has a history of refusing to cooperate with the Hague-based international court. In 2002, Congress passed the “Hague Invasion Act” that empowered the president to use “all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any US or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court.”
During the Donal Trump administration, the White House sanctioned ICC officials investigating American and Israeli war crimes. In December, Congress amended the law to allow Washington to cooperate with the Hague to go after Russians.
During Wednesday’s committee hearing, Van Schaack emphasized that only Russians should be held accountable for war crimes. “I’ll say at the outset that in my role as the lead diplomat in the international justice space, I would work tirelessly to ensure that no US personnel will be brought before the ICC,” she said. “I do not think that that is an acute risk at this time.”
The Volodymyr Zelensky administration has repeatedly demanded that Russian officials be tried for war crimes as a condition of ending the war. On March 17, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and another official for kidnapping Ukrainian children. Shortly after, Kiev said the investigation into Putin made talks with Moscow impossible.
On March 27, Van Schaack announced the White House favored international mechanisms, separate from the ICC, to punish Russian officials for the “crime of aggression” in Ukraine. “At this critical moment in history, I am pleased to announce that the United States supports the development of an internationalized tribunal dedicated to prosecuting the crime of aggression against Ukraine,” she said. Adding that “there are compelling arguments for why” the crime of aggression “must be prosecuted alongside” crimes that are being investigated by the ICC.
posted by Satish Sharma at
14:12
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