Confessions of a News Junkie

As your public international lawyer friend, I should also point out that our resistance to the Rome Treaty and the International Criminal Court has not helped out "stellar" human rights record here in the land of "there is no such thing as international law." The key substantive crimes in international law, genocide and crimes against humanity, are fairly new laws. As the holdings of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia have demonstrated, there are key ambiguities in the jurisprudence of genocide and crimes against humanity. For the sake of enforcement and principles of justice it is absolutely essential that these laws develop in a strong judicial context. The key principle of criminal law domestically in all Western legal systems is "legality," or nullum crimen sine lege, which basically requires that the state of an enforceable criminal law be free of ambiguity before an alleged transgressor is prosecuted for the violation of such law. The International Criminal Court and the Rome Treaty are key steps in making explicit the state of these two crucial legal doctrines, as well as creating a stable judicial institution for the consistent and just development of humanitarian law. The US, as the world's most powerful country, makes a strong and unfortunate statement when it withdraws from the Rome Treaty. It says that when it comes to these key principles of humanitarian law the substance is still "to the victor go the spoils." For a nation that has decided to depose heads of state by force it would be nice to turn the fromer criminal leaders over to a semi-disinterested 3rd party like the ICC rather than the farce of legal proceedings and executions we have seen in the new failed state of Iraq. If we are going to create vacuums we should support reasonable transitional mechanisms. Or maybe I will just move back to Sweden and to hell with the rest of you! :) I am kidding about the "to hell with" part...less so about the moving back to Sweden part.
 

As a student at the Monterey Institute of INTERNATIONAL Studies, with copious connections to employment resources abroad - I will also be living in an ICC nation - and hopefully secure an internship in The Hague this summer :)

Yes, the contradiction between US contributions to the Rome Treaty and Bush "unsigning" our compliance to the ICC does present the reasons why Genocide isn't taken as seriously (less of a pripority) in the US as it may be recognized and cause action from European nations, UN, etc...
Hopefully Angela Merkel will find a way for the EU to send support or representatives to Darfur to lobby Bashir.