From the IPA’s press release yesterday concerning Obama administration support of ICC arrest warrants for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
The Washington Times editorialized Tuesday: The Obama administration is backing the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. It is a dangerous precedent for the United States to rush to affirm the jurisdiction of this relatively new international body, particularly with a president whose counterterrorism strategy has made his name synonymous with ‘targeted killing.’ On Monday, ICC judges granted warrants for Col. Gadhafi, his son Seif al-Islam and regime intelligence chief Abdullah Sanussi. …
“In 2010, American law professor Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign, filed a complaint with the ICC prosecutor against Mr. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald H. Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice and Alberto Gonzales for ‘their criminal policy and practice of ‘extraordinary rendition’ perpetrated upon about 100 human beings.’ The dirty little secret is that renditions have continued — and some sources say increased — under the Obama administration. This, combined with the questionable legality of drone strikes under international law, could come back to haunt the White House if the ICC continues to expand its authority.”
[Note: Obama, at his news conference today, made reference to the ICC case and repeated allegations of the Gadhafi regime using rape as a weapon. BBC reports: "Donatella Rovera from Amnesty International, who has spent three months in the country, said the organization did not have evidence of cases of rape so far."]
