Liberian Lives in the Balance as US Demands Impunity
NEW YORK - To pursue its political agenda to undermine the International Criminal Court, the United States is risking the prospect that UN intervention in battle-scarred Liberia will be delayed or even scuttled, the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights warned today. The UN Security Council is poised to adopt a resolution tomorrow mandating a multinational military force to stabilize Liberia and prepare for a UN peacekeeping force in the next few months. But as deaths rise above 1,000 and factional fighting leaves tens of thousands of Liberians homeless and facing starvation and disease, the US is reigniting the debate over exemption from ICC prosecution for personnel involved in UN authorized operations.

Deployment of the multinational force could be held up by US insistence on a clause in the draft U.N. Security Council resolution that would provide permanent blanket immunity from possible ICC prosecution to all U.N. authorized personnel in Liberia.

“The US position is wrong and ill-advised” said Mike Posner, Executive Director of the Lawyers Committee, "No one should be shielded from prosecution for committing systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.”

This is not the first time the United States has sought immunity from ICC prosecution for peacekeepers and other UN authorized personnel. In 2002, the United States succeeded in obtaining a controversial one-year exemption, renewed for another 12 months on June 12 this year. But other Council members, including France and Germany, sent a clear message to the US not to expect this temporary exemption to become permanent, stating that a permanent exemption would undermine the Court's authority and illegally amend the treaty that created the Court -- a power not granted to the Security Council by the UN Charter. Now the United States is re-opening the issue.

"Stripping the permanent exemption language from this resolution is critical because the Liberia resolution will set a precedent for how the Security Council handles this issue in the future” said Posner. “It’s critical that states who have been so supportive of the Court to date, continue to hold the line.”