A.G.: Belize will negotiate I.C.C. with U.S.
It came as an ominous ultimatum: give us a get out of court card or we’ll take away your military aid. But today, the Attorney General of Belize, Godfrey Smith, says the position of the United States Government on the issue of the International Criminal Court may not be the hard line it first came across as and Belize might be able to find a legal window that would make everyone happy. In essence, the Americans have asked that its citizens be exempt from the jurisdiction of the international court because as Smith put it, the U.S. is “wary of any international tribunal or legal process that is not sanctioned by United Nations Security Council”. The U.S. had issued a July first deadline, taking away military aid from any country that did not promise that it would not hand over U.S. nationals for prosecution by the I.C.C.. According to the Government, Belize receives between seventy-five to three hundred thousand U.S. dollars in aid every year. But as even the A.G. had to admit, if we sign the proposal called Article 98, it would put us in breach of other international treaties. So where does all this leave us? According to Smith, at the negotiating table.
Godfrey Smith, Attorney General
“The position of the Government of Belize at this moment in time is that we will attempt to negotiate with the United States of America an agreement with them that will not cause Belize to compromise it’s obligations that it signed onto with the International Criminal Court under the Rome Statute.”
“The basis for us to negotiate is that there seems to be a view coming out of the E.U. and some other countries, that look, you may be able to find an Article 98 agreement that you can sign, provided it deals with certain legal issues in a certain way. It is not saying… the position does not seem to be that anything that you sign with the United States will put you in breach of the Rome Statue. So that is the window that is there and which has to be explored fully. Obviously, Belize has to be pragmatic, we have good relations with the U.S., we share a strong flow of trade with the United States and if the legal position is that we can reach an agreement with them without breaching other obligations, then that may well be the position that the Government of Belize takes.”
“I don’t think that I could sit here as a foreign affairs policy person to the government and people of Belize and say that we are not concerned or take a keen interest in our relations with the United States based on any single act or combination of acts. So certainly, the fact that there was the issue of the trafficking in persons and now this issue of the Article 98 and the military assistance, has to be taken very seriously.”
“Belize, and the rest of CARICOM, is saying to the world at large that we believe in the principles for which this court stands and for which the Rome Statute stands. Obviously, the logical consequence of that is we believe that all states, including the United States of America, should sign on to the treaty and be a part of the system. We believe that there are adequate safeguards in place to guard against any politically motivated trials. They do not see it that way, and as I have said, if an avenue exists for them to not sign on or if they view it as a matter for their internal sovereignty and for their internal courts, then they are legally entitle to that and it is not for us to make a value judgement on that.”
According to Smith, current military programs operating in Belize will continue as planned. Negotiations between the Belize Government and U.S. officials here are set to start in the near future.
