Forum:American Service-Members' Protection Act?

Was thinking of making an article about it. It's pretty batshit crazy, does it belong on RW? Pascal yuiop (talk) 19:40, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Care to share the cliffnotes to us? 13:19, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
 * There's nothing "batshit crazy" about it. The US is an unratified signatory to the Rome Convention. So far as I'm aware, it does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC or any other court of universal jurisdiction. US solders might be subject to personal and territorial jurisdiction by engaging in prohibited acts within the territory of a signatory nation, so it's not outside the bounds of reason that the US would do something to "protect" service members. The question is whether federal statutory obstruction of what some reckon ought to be international law with this all-or-kicking-and-screaming-less-than-nothing-and-we-might-even-invade-the-Hague approach is extreme, which it is, and evidences an arrogant and heavy handed approach to the United States' role in the UN and world community, which it does. It also represents a marked departure approach from President Clinton's circumspect approach to signing the Rome Statute and then holding off on submitting it to Congress for advice and consent (my understanding is that it's functionally a treaty under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution — as such, it might also create problems under Article VI, which makes makes treaties the law of the land just as much as federal law). Nutty Roux (talk) 13:44, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
 * While I think it is indeed arrogant and ridiculous that the U.S. took this approach to the ICC, I do enjoy this particular line in the WP article on the act (emphasis mine): "The Dutch government reacted mildly to this legislation, which entitled the U.S. president to attempt to violate Dutch sovereignty by force without congressional approval." - Grant (talk) 13:59, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Yep. Except in the criminal context, where we're familiar with people getting arrested, property getting seized, etc., people don't usually think about how a sovereign enforces the law. For example, it's sometimes surprising to people to learn that civil courts necessarily enforce their orders by the threat of coercive government power where necessary. That means that they can and will simply send the US Marshall or County Sheriff over to take the person into custody to show cause why he shouldn't be fined or locked up for contempt when he doesn't comply with an order, and seize and sell property to pay judgments when he doesn't do it himself. I think the statute represents an expected level of arrogance from the US; and there's nothing inherently surprising about the reality that the US might have to take military action against a NATO signatory or UN member state in order to enforce it. One morally and legally troubling consequence of enforcing the statute to its fullest extent is that any military action under the circumstances would necessarily entail flagrant violent violations of other treaties to which the US is a signatory. Can you imaging the international outrage over the US sending troops to the Netherlands to recover a soldier being held on charges of even heinous war crimes? And you thought the US squandered its good will in the international community by its totally incompetent (and arrogant to the point of being hateful) handling of Iraq and Afghanistan. Nutty Roux (talk) 14:16, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Indeed. The threat of military or police intervention is largely what keeps states functioning, since I imagine a sizable minority of the population would not bother obeying laws if the state couldn't enforce them. I imagine the Dutch government took the act so mildly in part because, as you say, it's not surprising that the U.S. (or any nation) would take that approach to the act. On the other hand, I feel part of it has to do with the low likelihood of that actually happening in the first place. I wonder what kind of president it would take to risk the kind of international pariah status that would accompany such a move. - Grant (talk) 15:01, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

All fairly reasonable, I suppose. My objection to it, really, is that the US is essentially saying "Don't you even dare try and prosecute a US citizen for genocide or we'll do anything it takes to release him." Which would be fine if the charges were super-trumped up or the guy wasn't gonna get a fair trial, or things like that, but the ICC is not a scary institution that should be getting such a reaction from the US. And the risk of the ICC actually prosecuting an American is incredibly low anyway, admissibility tests at the ICC are pretty strict, and if the US says it is pursuing investigations in good faith, then the ICC investigation is set aside on grounds of "complementarity". As a final point, I think that WP article could do with rewriting/better referencing - This article suggests the reaction wasn't so mild, though I am struggling to find other articles as my Dutch is as good as my grandmothers. Pascal yuiop (talk) 06:52, 16 October 2014 (UTC)