[Sovereignty v. global justice [was... Mohammed gets Miranda]]

[Aimee Farr]

LUIS VILDOSOLA said:

> Before you can judge an act to be a crime against humanity.
> I'd like to know what acts can be identified as crime,

According to the UN
<http://www.un.org/law/icc/statute/elements/elemfra.htm>
Which illustrates that a crime is a legal wrong as defined by the sovereign.

Otherwise, what Jim said. I could add some legalese, but who wants that.

> This is not to question the merit of such an enterprise but to
> question the means ...corruption.

Your questions regarding semantics are highly relevant. The ICC is tangled
up in definitions of "the crime of aggression" at the moment. As far as the
definition of humanity, I'm not going to bite that.

Many nations feel that it will be used by the few, or the many, as a
political vehicle. Others fear the Court will extend it's subject matter
jurisdiction after gaining acceptance. The last 3 signatures before the Dec.
31 deadline were....Iran...Israel...US (Clinton on his way out - but don't
look for it getting past the Senate. The US Military is violently opposed.)
In the realm of lunatic possibilities, I can think of several areas where
there might be an interest in extending the Court's subject matter
jurisdiction to include other common denominators of criminality, according
to the majority world viewpoint, but I question if this would be undertaken.
Finding base emotional common denominators are easy, (using children as
shields, for example) but notions of criminality, and viewpoints regarding
the application of justice are anything but universal.

Since the traditional place of the sovereign is between the individual and
other nation-states, many view the ICC's "directness" as a significant
encroachment on sovereignty, and some say it's meant to be a restraint on
progress of a revolutionary nature. (ie corruption: make unfounded
allegations against a rebel leader, a foreign military force in residence,
etc.)

Cypherpunks illustrate the importance of a "sheltering sovereign," and how
ideas can mature, take tangible form, and spread to other nation-states,
especially in a networked society. Many of the ideas put forth in this forum
would benefit from a criminal nation-state, a misnomer that includes a
spectrum running from liberty/tax havens to terrorist harbors. So, in my
naive view, anything that is viewed as an encroachment on sovereignty (or
asylum) has some relevance here.

[The ICC is a very politicized topic. I've been chewing at both ends of the
pro/con stick, which are equally sensational in nature. I'm certainly no
expert in foreign relations, or the ICC, so I encourage anybody interested
in this issue to do the same, and form their own opinion.]

	A:mee