International Criminal Court

Robert Gard says: "The laws of war prohibit attacks against civilians and require that attacks on military targets that may knowingly put civilians at risk must be "proportional." Proportionality is a necessarily imprecise standard. The civilian casualties must not be disproportionate to the concrete and direct military benefits of destroying or neutralizing the target. My own view is that US objections to the International Criminal Court are misguided. There are provisions to prevent irresponsible charges from coming before the court. The US negotiator even succeeded in obtaining agreement that the nation state has the first right of trial of any alleged perpetrator; so the fear that some nation may whisk one of our soldiers off to the Court is unfounded".

My comment: I would go further. International law forbids attacking a country just because another country thinks it is a threat. If countries attacked other countries they deemed a threat, the result would be global warfare, the downside of globalization.

Ronald Hilton - 8/27/02