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Colombian and US Exceptions to the International Criminal Court And in fact, it didn't take long for this to happen. On August 5, the Colombian government submitted a declaration to the UN Secretary General invoking a provision to prohibit the court from ruling for the next seven years on crimes committed by Colombians or in Colombian territory against persons or property protected under international humanitarian law. This means that, although Colombia was among the 78 countries that ratified the Treaty of Rome (which created the International Criminal Court), it will not recognize its jurisdiction over so-called war crimes. It's worth noting that the exception is permitted under Article 124 of the Rome treaty. According to its framers, it was included to allow countries undergoing internal conflicts to belong to the international convention without penalizing their own citizens in the short term. Some analysts believe that the decision will help facilitate the peace process in Colombia in the long term by making it possible to grant immunity to individuals implicated in human rights violations. But not everyone in Colombia agrees with the government's petition. Among the critics are Attorney General Edgardo Moya, several members of the Congress and leaders of NGOs, who say the decision sends confusing signals to the international community. An editorial in El Tiempo stated, "it's difficult to understand how a country with one of the worst armed conflicts in the world could ask for a seven-year exemption for crimes as reprehensible as forced conscription of minors, torture, hostage taking, bombing towns and cities, executing combatants who have surrendered, attacking ambulances and churches, using civilians as human shields and vigilante justice." Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo argued that the government's position "doesn't mean granting impunity to war crimes" committed in Colombia. Such crimes would still be subject to the country's own judicial process, he pointed out. Critics countered that although Colombia has the right laws in place, in practice impunity reigns in the country. They see the International Criminal Court as a warning to violent actors that even if they are not punished under their own country's laws, they can still be found guilty by an international tribunal. For its part, the United States is seeking bilateral agreements with as many countries as possible to ensure immunity to its soldiers. The Treaty of Rome allows for such agreements within a certain period of time. According to US State Department Spokesman Philip Reeker, US fears center around the concern that "US soldiers could find themselves in politically charged situations." The US assistant secretary of state for political affairs, Marc Grossman, has asked the Colombian government for its support in extending immunity from the court to US military advisors in Colombia. The New York Times called the US actions "an incredibly petulant attitude on the part of a country that played a decisive role in halting the massacres in the ethnic conflict [in Bosnia] and pioneered the idea for the war crime trials in Nuremberg more than 50 years ago." "The political argument," chimed in The Economist, "is that a strong democracy such as the United States resents having its hands tied by international accords….It's understandable that the US would try to avoid such commitments out of concern that they could be used by its enemies to limit its capabilities." The international community is left to wonder about the real commitment of these two countries in seeking to remain above basic standards of international humanitarian law in their dealings with a court whose mission is to try cases involving the most serious examples of war crimes, genocide, aggression and human rights violations.
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