Comment by jameshilliard | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jameshilliard | Hacker News Reader

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> ICC claims jurisdiction in Palestine. Whether Israel or the US accepts that is their business. But that still doesn't explain the legal basis of going against individual employees of the ICC. I see no "imposition" of jurisdiction here by the ICC or any of the countries that signed the Rome statute.

The ICC is attempting to have arrest warrants enforced through cooperation with states that are parties to the Rome Statutes for claimed offenses by citizens of countries that are not party to the Rome statute. The US views this as an attack on sovereignty essentially and essentially has decided to retaliate by imposing sanctions.

> The ICC merely issues documents; everybody is free to agree or disagree with their documents. They have no power of enforcement whatsoever. The US here is taking action.

The ICC issues documents that Rome Statute signatories have agreed to enforce(whether they actually enforce in practice is another matter. Regardless it seems pretty clear that the US considers any threat of enforcement to be sufficient grounds to impose sanctions against the organization they view as attacking it.

> Can you point me at any action that the ICC has taken in the United States?

The ICC has made it difficult for the head of government of a strategic ally of the US to travel to many countries at a time when that ally is under attack by many other countries. The ICC has in effect threatened to do the same to US citizens as well. There's a bit more nuance than this but it's not hard to see why the US views the ICC as a real threat worthy of sanctions. This is not really a new thing either, the US has even strong-armed many countries into signing "Article 98 agreements" in order to ensure ICC doesn't have jurisdiction over US citizens.[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_Internat...

The fundamental difference is that ICC invites partners to agree with their legal assessment. It is each country’s sovereign decision to enforce it or not. The US applies force and boldly assumes they not only have the power but the right to do so, outside of their national jurisdiction. That is US exceptionalism at its best.

If you act like a bully, you will not make friends. It’s as simple as that.

> The fundamental difference is that ICC invites partners to agree with their legal assessment. It is each country’s sovereign decision to enforce it or not.

This isn't really accurate from a strict reading of the Rome Statute, there are treaty obligations for party states under the Rome Statute to enforce arrest warrants issued by the ICC, in practice countries obviously can choose not to comply but doing so is arguably a violation of the Rome Statute treaty as written. The EU considers a failure to enforce an arrest warrant to be a violation of obligations under the statute.[0]

> The US applies force and boldly assumes they not only have the power but the right to do so, outside of their national jurisdiction. That is US exceptionalism at its best.

Since the US considers the ICC a serious threat to sovereignty I think it's rather unsurprising that the US would attempt to apply sanctions quite broadly to those judges or individuals at the ICC that take positions which conflict with the US positions on ICC jurisdiction.

> If you act like a bully, you will not make friends. It’s as simple as that.

IMO this is a rather simplistic view of foreign policy/relations, the goal of foreign policy is generally to advance the interests of a country, this can be done by making friends in some cases but that approach isn't always going to be effective. Making friends is not really the end goal of foreign policy.

[0] https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/mongolia-statement-spokesper...

> This isn't really accurate from a strict reading of the Rome Statute, there are treaty obligations for party states

Which are members voluntarily, and are enforcing whatever law they want on their own, national territory; not outside of it.

> Since the US considers the ICC a serious threat to sovereignty

Again: Fact is, the ICC is writing policy recommendations. Member states decided to adopt/agree with them, and enforce them on their own territory. It is a US invention to claim this a threat to the US national sovereignty. Nobody is arguing to enforce ICC rulings on United States territory.

> Making friends is not really the end goal of foreign policy.

You can claim that it isn't, OK. But I don't get how you can write it as if that was a hard fact. You make it sound as if that was a universal definition, which it isn't. Nobody, and no country (as in "the sum of its citizens"), likes it when others enter their boundaries and act like they have permission to make or enforce rules there without a contract/agreement. It's fine if you don't like the friend/enemy wording. It still is a hostile act.

> Which are members voluntarily, and are enforcing whatever law they want on their own, national territory; not outside of it.

A big reason for the ICC being created was to have an organization that could enforce certain laws that national courts would have trouble enforcing on their own. Obviously states can choose to violate the treaty but it certainly was the intent that ICC arrest are enforceable.

> Again: Fact is, the ICC is writing policy recommendations. Member states decided to adopt/agree with them, and enforce them on their own territory. It is a US invention to claim this a threat to the US national sovereignty. Nobody is arguing to enforce ICC rulings on United States territory.

The ICC is a court, it's not just writing policy recommendations. The ICC has made it clear they intend to pursue Americans and US allies and restrict their movement at a minimum by preventing them from entering countries that are signatories to the Rome Statute. Just because they aren't trying to abduct Americans on US soil doesn't mean they don't intend to go after Americans or American allies that are non-parties.

By your logic the US sanctions are also just policy recommendations, companies simply decide to adopt them and enforce them at the recommendation of the US.

> You can claim that it isn't, OK. But I don't get how you can write it as if that was a hard fact. You make it sound as if that was a universal definition, which it isn't. Nobody, and no country (as in "the sum of its citizens"), likes it when others enter their boundaries and act like they have permission to make or enforce rules there without a contract/agreement. It's fine if you don't like the friend/enemy wording.

The US clearly views the ICC as an external entity attempting to enforce rules without a contract or agreement.

> It still is a hostile act.

Sanctions and ICC arrest warrants/investigations can both be considered hostile acts.

I honestly don’t know if you cannot see the difference between issuing a warrant to be enforced by sovereign nations (or not), and actively interfering on foreign soil, or you simply don’t want to, and to avoid having to agree with that distinction you’re making up random arguments. If you have the opinion that a country has the right to act in that way, simply say so.

The ICC has zero executive power and as such by definition cannot act violently. There is a clear difference between ICCs publications and a country‘s decision or refusal to enforce it, and the consequences if Visa were to refuse implementing the sanctions. You are not honestly proposing that they have a choice.

Just because you have the means of violence doesn’t mean it is right (beneficial) to apply them.

If I enter your home, and refuse to leave, feel free to extract me. Don’t try that in mine.

I think I made this distinction sufficiently clear by now.

> I honestly don’t know if you cannot see the difference between issuing a warrant to be enforced by sovereign nations (or not), and actively interfering on foreign soil, or you simply don’t want to, and to avoid having to agree with that distinction you’re making up random arguments.

I'm not saying there are no differences, but your apparent claim that "issuing a warrant to be enforced by sovereign nations (or not)" in the manner the ICC does is not itself a form of "actively interfering on foreign soil" just doesn't seem to be aligning with the reality of the situation.

> If you have the opinion that a country has the right to act in that way, simply say so.

I would agree these sort of sanctions are somewhat problematic in general, however given that the ICC has decided to issue actual arrest warrants backed by the power of a legally binding international treaty I think it's also hard to argue that the sanctions are much of an overreaction given the real threat to the interests of the US and allies they pose. IMO arrest warrants are a step above sanctions in terms of their potential threat to those being targeted.

> The ICC has zero executive power and as such by definition cannot act violently. There is a clear difference between ICCs publications and a country‘s decision or refusal to enforce it, and the consequences if Visa were to refuse implementing the sanctions. You are not honestly proposing that they have a choice.

The Rome Statute is a binding treaty for State Parties, many of these states appear to take a fairly strict interpretation in regards to their obligations to enforce an arrest warrant issued by the ICC in their own national laws/policies, this is in effect those states delegating the power of state violence to the ICC. Just because some states decide to violate a binding international treaty doesn't mean the ICC is entirely unable to exercise the delegated power of state violence. Likewise just because the ICC can only indirectly exercise the power of state violence doesn't mean it doesn't have that power at all.

> Just because you have the means of violence doesn’t mean it is right (beneficial) to apply them.

My argument is more that the ICC and the US are both in effect using the threat of state violence(arrest warrants/sanctions) as a way to advance their goals internationally.

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