US gets breather on war crimes court

Resolving a fierce dispute with the US, the UN Security Council agreed unanimously to give American peacekeepers a year’s exemption fro...

Resolving a fierce dispute with the US, the UN Security Council agreed unanimously to give American peacekeepers a year’s exemption from prosecution by a new global war crimes court.

The intense conflict pitted the US, which opposes the International Criminal Court, against all 15 European Union nations, Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Argentina and many others advocates of the tribunal they believe the world needs to counter a future Hitler or Pol Pot.

After some three weeks of negotiations, the council adopted a compromise text that fell short of the US administration’s demands for blanket immunity from the court but saved UN peacekeeping missions from the Bush administration’s threats to veto them, one by one.

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British Ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the current council president, had the council immediately approve an extension of the peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and a smaller one on Croatia’s Prevlaka peninsula.

US Ambassador John Negroponte said the resolution ‘‘offers us a degree of protection for the coming year.’’ He threatened supporters of the court — virtually every ally of the US— if any American were ever brought before the tribunal, to be set up in the Hague.

‘‘Should the ICC seek to detain any American, the US would regard it as illegitimate — and it would have serious consequences. No nation should underestimate our commitment to protect our citizens,’’ he said. (Reuters)