4 ms·

If the US is in the wrong, why should I as a citizen not want our government officials held accountable?

ptero 1y ago
"In the wrong" is often jurisdiction specific. I do not want otherwise reasonable candidates to avoid the ballot because of the risk of being convicted by some external court.
- vidarh 1y ago
  If they're planning to do something that might get them indicted for crimes against humanity, then they are not reasonable candidates.
  - ptero 1y ago
    Unfortunately, there are enough courts that are very willing to slap any label on any suitably vilified candidate. Pick any president of India; you can probably find a Pakistani court would be willing to convict for "crimes against humanity". And vice versa. Or pick some Iraq-Iran pairings. Or Armenian- Azerbaijani, etc. Allowing external courts to judge presidents is a bad idea. It is a slippery slope even for cases that seem obvious. My 2c.
    - vidarh 1y ago
      We're talking about any random court, however, but the ICC. It does not have a history of "slapping any label on any suitably vilified candidate". Put another way: The US has a history of deciding it is allowed to start actual wars to overthrow the kind of people committing the kind of crimes that gets you targeted by the ICJ. The US just wants its own people to not be subjected to what it has a long history of imposing on others.
      - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        To the degree the ICC has precedent, it’s in being powerless over great powers. I don’t know what the solution is. But an essentially advisory body like the ICC probably isn’t it if the goal is checking the U.S. and its allies, or China and its allies. (Maybe it’s useful for checking Western Europe? Idk.)
      - pineaux 1y ago
        This is exactly right. "Might makes right" is very true on the international stage. The ICC tried to fix that, but they have been muzzled when it comes to real might.
    - mdhb 1y ago
      There is absolutely zero evidence that you can point to that credibly suggests this court would or has done anything like you’re describing.
spwa4 1y ago
If you look at the history of the ICC, what makes you think they hold people accountable for human rights violations? Never mind effectively. The ICC is a cool idea in theory. The implementation pretty much causes human rights violations.
- lurk2 1y ago
  > The implementation pretty much causes human rights violations. How is that?
  - spwa4 1y ago
    For example: selective enforcement, for example states vs terrorists. Even Russia became a victim of that, which I'll point out in hopes of avoiding discussion on Israel. Russia, of course commits human rights abuses in Ukraine. But Daesh committed serious human rights abuses against Russia [1] [2], as did a number of other islamist, nationalist and even a socialist group. Not one iota of attention of the court ever went to that. But this is a general problem. The court undertakes action against states, especially if they are currently unpopular in the UN (who appoints the judges), but never against the many groups that commit large scale human rights abuses against those states. A third problem is that ICC convictions are entirely optional if you're in power. Any government is allowed to ask the ICC to not sue anyone for things either they did, or that happened on their soil. Sorry, any government EXCEPT the US and Israel are allowed to ask that. The ICC changed it's own statutes TWICE last year to sue Israel, and has done so before against the US. A relevant question would be "is the ICC allowed to change it's own statutes?" ... and of course the answer is no. Or you could point out less serious, but ubiquitous human rights abuses that the ICC won't touch for various reasons. For example, every last muslim-majority state violates freedom of religion, a human right. Even Morocco and Turkey do [3] [4]. You will not hear the ICC on this issue. Or to focus on a different problem, there's constant human rights abuses essentially everywhere on the planet in the prison system, including juvenile justice systems and just general youth services. This happens everywhere, with famous incidents in Romania, the US, France, Australia, ... you will not hear the ICC on this. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocus_City_Hall_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocus_City_Hall_attack [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_siege https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_siege [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_Morocco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_Morocco [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_Turkey#Abuses_of_religious_freedom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_Turkey#...
revnode 1y ago
> If the US is in the wrong, why should I as a citizen not want our government officials held accountable? A core principle of American justice is judgement by a jury of your peers from your community according to our laws, not by foreigners on the other side of the planet according to foreign laws. Violations of our core principles through means we were not a party to is a violation of our sovereignty.
- justacrow 1y ago
  "Core principles" here also being America assassinating and kidnapping citizens of other countries wherever they may be on the globe.
- slt2021 1y ago
  >>jury of your peers from your community according to our laws when it comes to Crimes against humanity (genocide, mass killings, tortures, etc) - our peers are whole Humanity, and everyone who support United Nation's Human Rights Declaration. You cannot have American human rights to live, and at the same time deny the right to live to non-Americans. Which is what America is doing: extrajudicial murder of foreigners (drone strikes + collateral murder) and sponsoring of terrorism and genocide (Israel-gaza war). the point is not to argue specific bullet points on obscure US codes, but 30 very basic unalienable universal human rights. if USA denies these rights to the whole world, then there is no reason to expect the whole world support america in any way, like lending money by buying US treasuries, exchanging oil for freshly printed worthless USD, respecting US tourists' right to live when they are exploring the world, etc
- vkou 1y ago
  > A core principle of American justice is judgement by a jury of your peers from your community according to our laws, not by foreigners on the other side of the planet according to foreign laws. When a US president signs a death list - the assassination of someone, does that person get a trial by a jury of their peers first? Or do they just get a predator drone missile in their direction? I think it's accurate to say that a core principle of American justice is that there is one set of rules for the in-group, and another for the out-group. And any institution that tries to normalize this is anathema to that principle.

"In the wrong" is often jurisdiction specific. I do not want otherwise reasonable candidates to avoid the ballot because of the risk of being convicted by some external court.

vidarh 1y ago
If they're planning to do something that might get them indicted for crimes against humanity, then they are not reasonable candidates.
- ptero 1y ago
  Unfortunately, there are enough courts that are very willing to slap any label on any suitably vilified candidate. Pick any president of India; you can probably find a Pakistani court would be willing to convict for "crimes against humanity". And vice versa. Or pick some Iraq-Iran pairings. Or Armenian- Azerbaijani, etc. Allowing external courts to judge presidents is a bad idea. It is a slippery slope even for cases that seem obvious. My 2c.
  - vidarh 1y ago
    We're talking about any random court, however, but the ICC. It does not have a history of "slapping any label on any suitably vilified candidate". Put another way: The US has a history of deciding it is allowed to start actual wars to overthrow the kind of people committing the kind of crimes that gets you targeted by the ICJ. The US just wants its own people to not be subjected to what it has a long history of imposing on others.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      To the degree the ICC has precedent, it’s in being powerless over great powers. I don’t know what the solution is. But an essentially advisory body like the ICC probably isn’t it if the goal is checking the U.S. and its allies, or China and its allies. (Maybe it’s useful for checking Western Europe? Idk.)
    - pineaux 1y ago
      This is exactly right. "Might makes right" is very true on the international stage. The ICC tried to fix that, but they have been muzzled when it comes to real might.
  - mdhb 1y ago
    There is absolutely zero evidence that you can point to that credibly suggests this court would or has done anything like you’re describing.

spwa4 1y ago

If you look at the history of the ICC, what makes you think they hold people accountable for human rights violations? Never mind effectively. The ICC is a cool idea in theory. The implementation pretty much causes human rights violations.

lurk2 1y ago
> The implementation pretty much causes human rights violations. How is that?
- spwa4 1y ago
  For example: selective enforcement, for example states vs terrorists. Even Russia became a victim of that, which I'll point out in hopes of avoiding discussion on Israel. Russia, of course commits human rights abuses in Ukraine. But Daesh committed serious human rights abuses against Russia [1] [2], as did a number of other islamist, nationalist and even a socialist group. Not one iota of attention of the court ever went to that. But this is a general problem. The court undertakes action against states, especially if they are currently unpopular in the UN (who appoints the judges), but never against the many groups that commit large scale human rights abuses against those states. A third problem is that ICC convictions are entirely optional if you're in power. Any government is allowed to ask the ICC to not sue anyone for things either they did, or that happened on their soil. Sorry, any government EXCEPT the US and Israel are allowed to ask that. The ICC changed it's own statutes TWICE last year to sue Israel, and has done so before against the US. A relevant question would be "is the ICC allowed to change it's own statutes?" ... and of course the answer is no. Or you could point out less serious, but ubiquitous human rights abuses that the ICC won't touch for various reasons. For example, every last muslim-majority state violates freedom of religion, a human right. Even Morocco and Turkey do [3] [4]. You will not hear the ICC on this issue. Or to focus on a different problem, there's constant human rights abuses essentially everywhere on the planet in the prison system, including juvenile justice systems and just general youth services. This happens everywhere, with famous incidents in Romania, the US, France, Australia, ... you will not hear the ICC on this. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocus_City_Hall_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocus_City_Hall_attack [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_siege https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_siege [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_Morocco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_Morocco [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_Turkey#Abuses_of_religious_freedom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_Turkey#...

revnode 1y ago

> If the US is in the wrong, why should I as a citizen not want our government officials held accountable? A core principle of American justice is judgement by a jury of your peers from your community according to our laws, not by foreigners on the other side of the planet according to foreign laws. Violations of our core principles through means we were not a party to is a violation of our sovereignty.

justacrow 1y ago
"Core principles" here also being America assassinating and kidnapping citizens of other countries wherever they may be on the globe.
slt2021 1y ago
>>jury of your peers from your community according to our laws when it comes to Crimes against humanity (genocide, mass killings, tortures, etc) - our peers are whole Humanity, and everyone who support United Nation's Human Rights Declaration. You cannot have American human rights to live, and at the same time deny the right to live to non-Americans. Which is what America is doing: extrajudicial murder of foreigners (drone strikes + collateral murder) and sponsoring of terrorism and genocide (Israel-gaza war). the point is not to argue specific bullet points on obscure US codes, but 30 very basic unalienable universal human rights. if USA denies these rights to the whole world, then there is no reason to expect the whole world support america in any way, like lending money by buying US treasuries, exchanging oil for freshly printed worthless USD, respecting US tourists' right to live when they are exploring the world, etc
vkou 1y ago
> A core principle of American justice is judgement by a jury of your peers from your community according to our laws, not by foreigners on the other side of the planet according to foreign laws. When a US president signs a death list - the assassination of someone, does that person get a trial by a jury of their peers first? Or do they just get a predator drone missile in their direction? I think it's accurate to say that a core principle of American justice is that there is one set of rules for the in-group, and another for the out-group. And any institution that tries to normalize this is anathema to that principle.