Afghan conflict: Top court backs war crimes probe

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The US does not recognise the court's jurisdiction over its citizens

An investigation of alleged war crimes by the US and others in the Afghan conflict can go ahead, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has ruled.

The ICC overturned on appeal a previous decision to block the investigation.

The actions of the Taliban, the Afghan government and US troops since May 2003 are expected to be examined.

But US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the ruling was "reckless" and vowed to protect Americans from it.

"This is a truly breathtaking action by an unaccountable, political institution masquerading as a legal body", he said.

"All the more reckless for this ruling to come just days after the United States signed a historic peace deal on Afghanistan, which is the best chance for peace in a generation."

The deal was signed with the Taliban last Saturday after more than 18 years of conflict.

The US is not a signatory of the ICC and does not recognise its authority over American citizens.

Last year the Trump administration imposed travel restrictions and other sanctions on ICC officials.

President Donald Trump has also pardoned troops prosecuted in the US for alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is a member of the court but officials there have also expressed opposition to the inquiry.

In April 2019 a pre-trial chamber at the ICC ruled that the investigation should not go ahead because it would not "serve the interests of justice".

ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has been seeking a formal investigation into the alleged crimes since 2017.

The International Criminal Court has long been criticised for spending far too much of its time looking at the alleged crimes of smaller - often African - nations and shying away from taking cases involving major world players.

So to this extent its investigation into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan is an important moment.

Its remit is to look at the behaviour of the Taliban, the Afghan Government's forces and of course the Americans.

And therein lies the problem. The United States is not a party to the ICC and is unlikely to co-operate with it. More generally Afghanistan is still far from being at peace.

There will be those who see some kind of judicial process to hold wrong-doers to account as being an essential part of reconciliation in the country. But the practical problems facing any ICC mission may be insurmountable.

Presiding appeals judge Piotr Hofmanski said the original pre-trial judges had made a mistake.

They had said that an investigation would not be in the interests of justice because it was unlikely to result in successful prosecutions.

But Judge Hofmanski ruled that they had exceeded their powers.

He said that Ms Bensouda's request did meet the criteria, by showing there was a reasonable basis to believe crimes that fall within the court's jurisdiction may have been committed.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told the BBC in 2017 she was "looking at allegations from all parties"

A preliminary investigation lasting more than a decade examined crimes including intentional attacks against civilians, imprisonment and extra-judicial executions.

A 2016 report from the ICC said there was a reasonable basis to believe the US military had committed torture at secret detention sites operated by the CIA.

The report also said it was reasonable to believe the Afghan government had tortured prisoners and the Taliban had committed war crimes such as the mass killing of civilians.

mcoder on March 5th, 2020 at 11:47 UTC »

Let us see if they dare enforce the Hague Invasion Act:

a United States federal law that aims "to protect United States military personnel and other elected and appointed officials of the United States government against criminal prosecution by an international criminal court to which the United States is not party." Introduced by U.S. Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) and U.S. Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX) it was an amendment to the 2002 Supplemental Appropriations Act for Further Recovery From and Response to Terrorist Attacks on the United States (H.R. 4775). The bill was signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush on August 2, 2002.

It authorizes the U.S. president to use "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court". This authorization has led the act to be nicknamed the "Hague Invasion Act".

The act prohibits federal, state and local governments and agencies (including courts and law enforcement agencies) from assisting the court. For example, it prohibits the extradition of any person from the U.S. to the Court; it prohibits the transfer of classified national security information and law enforcement information to the court.

The act also prohibits U.S. military aid to countries that are party to the court. However, exceptions are allowed for aid to NATO members, major non-NATO allies, Taiwan, and countries that have entered into "Article 98 agreements", agreeing not to hand over U.S. nationals to the court.

There are 123 ICC member states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court!

Wondering what they could be hiding? Gather around, children of the disinformation age. Story time:

Bolton flew to The Hague in 2002 to personally threaten the director of OPCW (the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) despite the fact that he had been unanimously re-elected to head the 145-nation body, because it interfered with their weapons of mass destruction narrative.

https://theintercept.com/2018/03/29/john-bolton-trump-bush-bustani-kids-opcw/:

In early 2002, a year before the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration was putting intense pressure on Bustani to quit as director-general of the OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) — despite the fact that he had been unanimously re-elected to head the 145-nation body just two years earlier. His transgression? Negotiating with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to allow OPCW weapons inspectors to make unannounced visits to that country — thereby undermining Washington’s rationale for regime change.

In 2001, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell had penned a letter to Bustani, thanking him for his “very impressive” work. By March 2002, however, Bolton — then serving as under secretary of state for Arms Control and International Security Affairs — arrived in person at the OPCW headquarters in the Hague to issue a warning to the organization’s chief. And, according to Bustani, Bolton didn’t mince words. “Cheney wants you out,” Bustani recalled Bolton saying, referring to the then-vice president of the United States. “We can’t accept your management style.”

Bolton continued, according to Bustani’s recollections: “You have 24 hours to leave the organization, and if you don’t comply with this decision by Washington, we have ways to retaliate against you.”

There was a pause.

“We know where your kids live. You have two sons in New York.”

Bustani told me he was taken aback but refused to back down. “My family is aware of the situation, and we are prepared to live with the consequences of my decision,” he replied.

After hearing Bustani’s description of the encounter, I reached out to his son-in-law, Stewart Wood, a British politician and former adviser to Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Wood told me that he vividly remembers Bustani telling him about Bolton’s implicit threat to their family immediately after the meeting in the Hague. “It instantly became an internal family meme,” Wood recalled. Two former OPCW colleagues of Bustani, Bob Rigg and Mikhail Berdennikov, have also since confirmed via email that they remember their then-boss telling them at the time about Bolton’s not-so-subtle remark about his kids.

When I recently TIL'd that Bolton actively wololo'd the war in Iraq along with the fact that he is still operating in broad daylight, I realized it can only be because they are dominating public opinion and drafted a thesis:

Public opinion is more important than we imagine; it embraces the entire world, embeds itself in law and gives birth to revolution.

We need an antivirus to the disinformation campaigns waged against us. A group effort to sway public opinion towards the interests of the masses... r/MassMove

Notenoughsleep2435 on March 5th, 2020 at 11:02 UTC »

USA doesn’t even acknowledge the ICC as having authority over them. It’s ironic because the USA was all about international courts after WW2 but now it runs away from the very thought.

autotldr on March 5th, 2020 at 10:01 UTC »

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 50%. (I'm a bot)

An investigation of alleged war crimes by the US and others in the Afghan conflict can go ahead, the International Criminal Court has ruled.

The ICC overturned on appeal a previous decision to block the investigation.

A 2016 report from the ICC said there was a reasonable basis to believe the US military had committed torture at secret detention sites in Afghanistan operated by the CIA. The report also said it was reasonable to believe the Afghan government and the Taliban had committed war crimes.

Extended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: ICC#1 investigation#2 Afghan#3 crimes#4 committed#5