The InterDependent

When the International Criminal Court held its first conference to review the court’s progress this spring, the United States hailed it as a success for American diplomacy. But the achievement was greeted by silence in American media.

After eight years of rebuffing the court, US diplomats faced a difficult task in June when they showed up at the conference in Kampala. Their long absence and noncooperation with the court during the Bush administration had alienated the US from the court’s members, so when the US appeared in Uganda, it had to balance its own interests with its constraints as an observer nation.

Luckily, the US delegation succeeded, generating goodwill among the court’s members. From the perspective of the Obama administration, US interests were ultimately protected, and the previous damaging legacy wiped out. Harold Koh, the State Department’s legal adviser and a leader of the US delegation, noted that the US “was once again seen, with respect to the ICC, as part of the solution and not the problem.”

But the media silence since the conference ended and the lack of coverage on the positive involvement of the US at the conference has been painful to bear, symbolizing a lost opportunity to let Americans know about this substantial progress in US multilateral diplomacy. As the world’s first international court to try individuals for the world’s most serious atrocities – genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of aggression – it has attracted 111 members since it opened in 2002. The US is not one of them, but under the Obama administration it has been moving closer to the court’s work, attending various meetings in the last year, including the most important so far, in Uganda.

What the media missed reporting on – the biggest news to emerge from the conference – was the addition of the crime of aggression to the court’s jurisdiction. Aggression is the illegal use of armed force by one nation against another, such as Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The US worked to persuade other countries that crimes of aggression are fundamentally political in nature and thus necessitate a referral by the UN Security Council rather than other possible ways of bringing aggression cases to the court. The US cooperated with likeminded countries to secure its interests in this outcome, ensuring that the Security Council is given priority over other triggers. Moreover, the result of the conference means that Americans will not be charged by the court for the crime of aggression without Security Council action or US assent if it joins the ICC. The US believes that its interests have been protected.

UN Photo

Susan Rice, US ambassador to the UN, speaking after a Security Council meeting on Darfur.

It’s true that the court’s review was full of complex debate, which might have left American reporters dissatisfied if not perplexed. Part of the conference dealt with technical legal issues on the crime of aggression, a complicated topic involving extensive legislative negotiations. The American media may have been more inspired to report on the result if it had been met with defeat. But the crime of aggression is, as the government of Kuwait reminded those at the conference, relevant to world affairs. Editors may have thought that their readers were not interested in or were even hostile to the court. Yet public opinion polls show that about two-thirds of Americans support US engagement with the court.

Curiously, the silence contrasts sharply with advance reporting on the Kampala conference. Many major newspapers and Web sites reported on the review during the conference: articles, editorials and op-eds in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, NPR, CNN and The Economist acknowledged the opportunity for the US to pursue its own views and concerns. Thankfully, these same media outlets have not been quiet when it came to reporting last month on the second arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir, president of Sudan, who has been charged by the court with genocide.

Atrocity crimes represent fundamental breaches of the most basic rights of fundamental American values. The Obama administration’s break from the previous administration, achieving international criminal justice through multilateral diplomacy, led to success in Kampala and a new chapter in US relations with the International Criminal Court. The American people deserve to know about this success.

John Groom contributed reporting to this article.