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White House Report: Bush Reiterates Opposition to ICC

(Says U.S. is still working to end UN peacekeeping stalemate)

Tuesday, July 2, 2002
U.S. Department of State

President Bush, Fleischer explained, "thinks the ICC is fundamentally flawed because it puts American servicemen and women at fundamental risk of being tried by an entity that is beyond America's reach, beyond America's laws, and can subject American civilian and military to arbitrary standards of justice."

President Bush says the United States will not sign on to the International Criminal Court (ICC) because as the nation works to build peace around the world its diplomats and soldiers could be dragged "into this court and that's very troubling," the President said.

He spoke July 2 with reporters who accompanied him as he toured a local church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to promote his domestic agenda.

Bush said the United States is working at the United Nations towards ending the stalemate over the ICC that could jeopardize the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Bosnia.

"We'll try to work out the impasse, but the one thing we're not going to do is sign on to this International Criminal Court," Bush said.

"President Clinton signed this treaty, but when he signed it he said it should not be submitted to the Senate," Bush told reporters. "It therefore never has been, and I don't intend to submit it either."

The new International Criminal Court came into force on July 1, 2002.
(More: U.S. Department of State News Source)
2002 © U.S. Department of State's Office of International Information.

Dan