US Punishes International Criminal Court for Investigating Potential War Crimes in Afghanistan

[Rogue Valley]

US Punishes International Criminal Court for Investigating Potential War Crimes in Afghanistan

The court prosecutes genocide, torture and grave wartime abuses worldwide. Trump's executive order imposes on its lawyers and judges the kind of sanctions usually used on foreign terrorists.

The Trump administration has sought to weaken or abandon various international agencies since 2016. Now it’s taking aim at the International Criminal Court, a global tribunal that investigates and prosecutes war crimes, torture and genocide. Claiming the ICC’s investigation into alleged war crimes by U.S. forces in Afghanistan poses a national security threat, President Donald Trump issued an executive order on June 11 effectively criminalizing anyone who works at the ICC. Its lawyers, judges, human rights researchers and staff could now have their U.S. bank accounts frozen, U.S. visas revoked and travel to the U.S. denied. On Sept. 2, Sec. State Mike Pompeo announced the new sanctions would be applied for the first time, against ICC special prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and her top aide. The ICC persisted, saying the U.S. could fend off the ICC by investigating the alleged war crimes itself. “The I.C.C. is not intent on ‘hauling’ Americans up to trial before it,” wrote ICC president Eboe-Osujiin in a June 18 New York Times op-ed responding to Trump’s Executive Order. It is simply committed to seeing credible claims against U.S. security personnel in Afghanistan investigated, Eboe-Osuji said. But the U.S. has refused to acknowledge that war crimes may have been committed.

The ICC began looking into US war crimes in Afghanistan after Donald Trump either pardoned or commuted the prison sentences of US soldiers convicted of war crimes in Afghanistan by US military courts.