U.S. Backs Off Immunity Fight Involving Court
Under severe criticism from some of its closest allies for demanding immunity for American peacekeepers from the new International Criminal Court, the United States offered a compromise today that would safeguard its troops and officials from prosecution for one year.

The proposal offered the first tangible prospect for the resolution of a dispute that has generated unusually fierce and united international criticism of the Bush administration. Among the sharpest critics in today's debate were the two immediate neighbors of the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The new American proposal marked a considerable retreat from the letter and spirit of earlier American drafts, which brusquely demanded blanket immunity for United Nations peacekeepers.

The new document makes no mention of immunity. It proposes that the new court not investigate or prosecute officials or personnel of United Nations missions for a year, after which the Security Council would vote to renew the arrangement.

The British ambassador, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, said the resolution was "a very fair basis for discussions," which will continue Thursday morning.

But several member nations reportedly continued to question the propriety of allowing the Security Council to tamper with the treaty that established the court, and it remained far from certain whether the United States would find the nine votes needed for passage in the 15-member Security Council.

"At stake today are entirely different issues that raise questions whether all people are equal and accountable before the law," said Paul Heinbecker, the ambassador of Canada, who had requested today's public session of the Security Council to allow countries that are not members of the Council to air their views.

"We have just emerged from a century that witnessed the evils of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Idi Amin, and the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia," Mr. Heinbecker said. "Surely we have all learned the fundamental lesson of this bloodiest of centuries, which is that impunity from prosecution for grievous crimes must end."

The Canadian speech was among the most critical at the session, but it reflected sentiments many travelers outside the United States have reported. Mexico's ambassador, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, said that "anyone who tried to interpret the statute according to their own purposes undermined the fundamental principles and integrity of the court."

The court was established to prosecute war crimes, genocide and heinous violations of human rights, but only if responsible countries failed to take action. The Rome Statute establishing the court was signed by 139 countries, and 76 have ratified it. President Clinton signed it shortly before leaving office, but the Bush administration renounced the action in May.

The administration has said it worries that the new court could be driven by politically motivated prosecutors and that American military personnel would not be given their constitutional rights, specifically the right to be tried by a jury of peers. But European diplomats and Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, have argued that the court includes safeguards to ensure fair trials and avoid biased prosecutions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/11/international/americas/11NATI.html