The UN Security Council's unanimous vote to temporarily exempt US troops from prosecution in the International Criminal Court (ICC) poorly masked US isolation from most of the international community.
Such rancor seems to be pervasive, as US Ambassador to the United Nations John Negroponte clearly broadcast, just moments after the vote, that for Washington, the resolution was nothing but "a first step."
Resolution 1422 mandates that the court cannot, during the first year of its existence and for a renewable 12-month period, prosecute peacekeepers from countries that have not signed the 1998 Rome treaty creating the first permanent court to try war criminals and those accused of genocide.
"We will use the coming year to find the additional protection we need using bilateral agreements. We will seek your co-operation in achieving the agreement," Negroponte said before warning against any effort by the court to prosecute a US service member.
"Should the ICC eventually seek to detain any American, the United States will regard this as illegitimate and it would have serious consequences."
Diplomats and analysts suggested Saturday that the impasse over the court was the fault of the US Government, which underestimated the unanimity of the world's resolve to support and sustain the court as well as to rebuff any US attempts to secure general and permanent immunity for its troops.
The nearly three weeks of closed-door negotiations, public debate, polemics and consultations are likely to leave scars, particularly with neighbors Canada and Mexico, among the most vociferous in their opposition to the US demands.
"It has created a very angry reaction both North and South, coming from the geographical neighbors and also close friends and that is the tip of the iceberg of the political damage the United States has done to themselves, pursuing their policy," said Human Rights Watch's (HRW) Richard Dicker.
Canadian Ambassador Paul Heinbecker said the adoption of the resolution marked "a sad day for the United Nations."
"We don't think it is in the mandate of the Security Council to interpret treaties that are negotiated somewhere else."
Dicker, who directs HRW's program for international justice, said another casualty of the US resolution was "the legitimacy of the Security Council."
The action Friday, he said, was "questionable legally and several states are considering challenging the lawfulness of the resolution."
The Bush administration's position, as unpopular as it is with the rest of the world, has firm support among US nationals, who balk at any international body having jurisdiction over US citizens.
Such a position was reinforced in a roundtable discussion Saturday on the public television station PBS, where analysts and pundits likened the debate at the United Nations in the last weeks to efforts by Lilliputians to bind Gulliver.
(Xinhua News Agency July 15, 2002)
