The Pentagon is preventing the sharing of US intelligence information with the International Criminal Court (ICC) about Russian war crimes in Ukraine, the New York Times.
The Biden White House and the State Department have long favored cooperation with The Hague-based ICC as a means of holding Russian forces accountable for widespread war crimes, but the Defense Department opposes it. firmly claiming that this precedent could be turned against American soldiers.
He New York Times He cites current and former officials who say Pentagon resistance is the obstacle. He reports that the National Security Council (NSC) called a top-level meeting on February 3 to try to resolve the dispute, but Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin did not budge. Joe Biden has not yet made a final decision.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, the sponsor of a congressional resolution that urged US support for the Ukraine tribunal, also blames the Pentagon.
El DoD [Departamento de Defensa] opposed the legislative change –approved by an overwhelming majority- and now they are trying to undermine the letter and the spirit of the law”, says Graham to the American newspaper, in statements confirmed to The Guardian for his office. “It seems to me that the DoD is the problem child here, and the sooner we can get the information into the hands of the ICC, the better for the world.”
Asked about the matter, NSC spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said: “Russian forces have been committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine, and the Ukrainian people deserve justice.”
“The United States supports various investigations to identify and hold those responsible accountable, including through the Ukrainian Attorney General’s Office, United Nations, expert missions established under the OSCE’s ‘Moscow mechanism’ [Organización para la Seguridad y la Cooperación en Europa]and the International Criminal Court, among others,” says Watson.
A senior defense official simply says: “The Department of Defense believes that we must hold Russia accountable.”
USA and the ICC
American legal experts helped draft the Rome Statute, which created the ICC. It was signed by Bill Clinton in 2000, but was not ratified by the Senate, and Clinton’s successor, George W Bush, took the unusual step of removing the American signature.
American critics of the court argued that enemies of the United States could use it to prosecute American soldiers fighting in foreign wars, despite safeguards in the statute that the international court would only have jurisdiction if the courts of the country of origin of the suspect they were unwilling or unable to prosecute.
In February, at the Munich Security Conference, Kamala Harris stated that the United States has established that Russia has committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine. The vice president added that Washington “will continue to support the judicial process in Ukraine and the international investigations, because justice must be done.”
Harris did not specify cooperation with the ICC, but last week, Beth van Schaack, US ambassador-general for global criminal justice, told a conference in Lviv: “The International Criminal Court occupies an important place in the ecosystem of the international justice, and the United States supports the ICC prosecutor’s investigation.”