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International court judge resigns, citing ‘shocking’ interference from ‘above the law’ US

RT | January 30, 2019

A senior judge has resigned from the UN International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, after the United States threatened judges investigating alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan.

The judge, Christoph Flügge, has worked with the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) since 2008. More recently, he got involved with preliminary investigations into claims that US military service members and CIA operatives tortured prisoners in Afghanistan.

Flügge told German newspaper Zeit that he handed in his resignation after open threats from US officials, including a speech by hawkish national security adviser John Bolton last September, where Bolton “wished death” on the Court.

“If these judges ever interfere in the domestic concerns of the US or investigate an American citizen, he said the American government would do all it could to ensure that these judges would no longer be allowed to travel to the United States – and that they would perhaps even be criminally prosecuted,” Flügge told Zeit, in an interview translated by The Guardian.

“The American security adviser held his speech at a time when The Hague was planning preliminary investigations into American soldiers who had been accused of torturing people in Afghanistan,” Flügge explained. “The American threats against international judges clearly show the new political climate. It is shocking. I had never heard such a threat.”

Bolton’s speech was delivered in September to the conservative Federalist Society in Washington, DC. It came a year after the ICC began investigating claims that at least 61 detained persons in Afghanistan had been tortured by American troops and another 27 by the CIA at secret prisons in Afghanistan and abroad, according to prosecutor Fatou Bensouda.

Bolton called the investigation “utterly unfounded” and “unjustifiable,” and promised to “protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court.”

The senior US official also vowed to defend Israeli citizens from the court. US “friend and ally” Israel was at the time accused of perpetrating war crimes against Palestinian civilians. He warned that the US would disregard arrest warrants, ban judges and prosecutors from entering the country, and even try them in American courts.

Flügge said his colleagues were “stunned” that “the US would roll out such heavy artillery,” but added “it is consistent with the new American line: ‘We are No 1 and we stand above the law’.”

American disregard for the ICC is not a new phenomenon. After much debate, President Bill Clinton signed the Rome Treaty that established the International Criminal Court, but the Congress never ratified it. Clinton’s successor George W. Bush symbolically ‘un-signed’ the treaty in 2002, when the war in Afghanistan was in full swing.

Later that year, the Congress passed the American Service Members’ Protection Act, which obliged the president to prevent any ICC prosecution of US armed forces “to the maximum extent possible,” and even authorized military force to free any US service members from ICC custody. Bolton, incidentally, was Bush’s under-secretary of state at the time.

The court has come under fire from more countries than just the US. Russia withdrew its signature from the Rome Treaty in 2016, after the court criticized the reunification of Crimea. China, India, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey are among the other nations that never signed the treaty.

January 30, 2019 - Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , , ,

4 Comments »

  1. Clearly humanity has some length to travel before emerging from the historical travesty of the law of the jungle. Hopefully World War III can be prevented by peace-loving people around the world, – acting successfully, so global nuclear war won’t break out and end it all before reaching that fine, unanimously-welcomed evolutionary chapter.

    Like

    Comment by Jerry Alatalo | January 30, 2019 | Reply

  2. Whilst the “New World Order” push for “One World Government” it seems they have no Interest in having a One World Legal system to oversea it, well, not a legal system that the USA doesn’t own anyway.

    “If these judges ever interfere in the domestic concerns of the US or investigate an American citizen, he said the American government would do all it could to ensure that these judges would no longer be allowed to travel to the United States – and that they would perhaps even be criminally prosecuted,” Flügge told Zeit, in an interview translated by The Guardian”.

    So, the USA Government is now completely out of step with the rest of the Free World regarding Law and Order. The USA continually interferes in the internal matters of other countries(Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya Syria etc(and Venezuela), but demands that everyone else succeed to the USA demands, whatever they are!

    The Core of the USA’s Government, including the CIA, NSA, Pentagon, and the MIC, are Renegades FROM “Freedom and Democracy”, instead of leading the World in an orderly and civilized manner.

    There is a glimmer of hope regarding the USA’s arrogance though, Afghanistan(as did the Vietnamese) have kicked their arses(asses?) out of their country…….
    The rest of the World want to have a good relationship with the USA……BUT, not the criminals who now control the USA…..

    Like

    Comment by Brian Harry, Australia | January 30, 2019 | Reply

  3. Sadly, it doesn’t even matter anymore. The court was a joke to start with, the United States Government has been a psychopathic serial killer of innocents since it started… The Billionaires took over the world, basically, and force their self centered will upon all peoples and all countries “underneath them” , for their own personal profits…

    And now in the Arctic ocean the undersea Methane Hydrate deposits are thawing explosively, and releasing millions of tons of Methane gas into the atmosphere daily. This is a runaway global warming episode now, with Methane being about 34 times more efficient at trapping the suns energy than is CO2… Humanity has just 2 to 3 years before the collapse of agriculture and massive die offs of livestock start happening, due to the temperatures rising above their capability of surviving in… Humanity will go extinct soon after.. By 2030, I would imagine, given the current geophysical state…

    No sense worrying about who does what to whom, internationally.. Justice is going to be served to every human being on Earth in the not too distant future now.

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    Comment by hconeil1957 | January 30, 2019 | Reply

  4. Eff my America and the Phucking Phool Revoltin’ Bolton who soils the planet Earth with his every breath and action.

    I’m always confused between the ICC and ICJ. Is/was Judge Flügge a member of the International Court of Justice, or is there a separate panel of judges that is part of and serves the ICC? I cannot forget July 9, 2004, when the ICJ ruled (on a very expedited track) that the criminal entity Ziomonster so-called Israel was in violation of international law via its erection of the Apartheid Wall largely within the landmass of Illegally Occupied Palestine: that the Apartheid Wall was to be dismantled forthwith and deleteriously affected Palestinians duly compensated for the damage done them. The ruling was of course ignored and unimplemented. The ICJ vote was 14 members “For” and 1 member “Against” — that member being an American and a Jew who, if there is any excuse to be given him, wrote that his “Against” was based on a technical/administrative objection–apparently meaning that his interpretation of actual law and justice comported with his 14 fellow judges.

    I again confess ignorance, but I ask: has Phucking Bolton never heard of “universal jurisdiction” and its probable specific application to instances such as this? In a sane, moral, just, lawful world, Phucking Bolton would get arrested by competent law-enforcement authority in any country he is brazen enough to travel to (excluding, of course, his favorite home the Ziomonster) and tried for participating in and/or fomenting myriad crimes against humanity.

    At any rate, kudos to the principled Judge Flügge; a pox on Revoltin’ Bolton and all the Zionists’ coattails he rides on.

    (I am disappointed in Russia’s action against the ICC in 2016. It should have taken on the challenge, arguing its case for Crimea point by point in favor of its and the Crimean people’s rights to decisions based on merit, public acclamation, and national interests while exposing the US’ machinations/meddling in neighboring Ukraine. Am I wrong? [At least RT had the journalistic integrity to address the issue!! — how many US MSM establishment shills will even cover this “real” news?])

    Like

    Comment by roberthstiver | January 31, 2019 | Reply


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