No resolution of shame

I would like to inform Deo Cassar (August 4) and remind your readers that his "resolution of shame", passed by the UN Security Council 12-0 (France, Germany and Mexico abstaining) will provide for a much-needed multinational force in Liberia, paving the way for a peacekeeping mission to that desperate nation. This force will operate with the full backing of the United Nations and under the authority of Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, and will be led by the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas).

The United States sponsored this resolution because it recognises the obligation of the international community to help bring peace to that war-torn region; indeed, the United States annually shoulders one quarter of UN peacekeeping mission costs worldwide. Mr Cassar notes correctly that the resolution includes a provision that gives immunity to peacekeepers from states not party to the International Criminal Court (ICC) from prosecution by the ICC for war crimes.

The United States has made its position on the ICC very clear. It believes that in order to be bound by a treaty under international law, a state must be party to that treaty. The ICC asserts jurisdiction over citizens of states that, like the United States, have not ratified the treaty. The United States also believes that its citizens are at special risk for politically motivated prosecutions by the ICC - which creates an unchecked prosecutorial system - given the unique US role in global politics and US participation in military operations and peacekeeping forces.

In fact, the recently repealed Belgian law to which Mr Cassar refers makes it rather evident that such concerns are not unfounded. The law provided for a principle of universal jurisdiction that is simply not recognised under international law, whereby world leaders could be prosecuted in a Belgian court for alleged offences that did not even involve Belgium or Belgian citizens. The government of Belgium, in its sovereign wisdom, has now brought its legislation into conformity with generally accepted principles of international law. The ICC, in our view, has not.

During the seven months I have lived in Malta, I have often read in this newspaper Mr Cassar's screeds in which he indicates his contempt for the policies of the United States. His comments consistently betray an antipathy for the United States that I hold no illusions will ever soften.

Nevertheless, if the United States is in fact the unbridled hegemon he so fears it to be, I would suggest to Mr Cassar that it is the most enlightened, democratic and civilised one the world is ever likely to see.