re: "I thought that was what the ICC was for the UN legal system?"
Not all UN member nations recognize the authority of the ICC - only 123 signed. USA is one of the non-signers. However, all 198 nations that signed the NPT (by signing) declared their willingness to comply by the treaty's rules of adjudication and punishment. Absence more signatures or withdrawals, ICC would be able to handle situations with only 62% of the NPT nations.
NPT is the Treaty with the most signatories, so, it would be mathematically impossible to find "another UN authority" that covers every NPT nations (except of course the General Assembly which is everyone in the UN, and probably what most people consider as the UN).
Thanks. Not surprising the USA hasn't signed this one along with all the others that give the UN some power to act.
Wonder when the USA will pay the UN the money they have owed for a few decades too but I am sure non compliance with a UN agreement isn't and issue in this case 'because reasons'
USA is already paying the most. We pay 22% of UN funding. All nations of Europe put together pays 33%, that is all of them together. You can hardly say we are not paying our "fair" share. In some cases, those are activities we have not agreed to or they are incompatible with our laws, we are hardly owing the money when we never agreed to fund that to being with.
To avoid getting into a political discussion, I am just sharing facts here to
explain the incompatibility. Lets not discuss the pro/con of any political stands.
In so far as ICC is concern, there is some USA Constitutional issues. USA is one of the few countries that go with much of of John Locke's ideas (the British Political Philosopher in the 1600's) - we believe in individual rights being innate to the individual rather than individual rights being granted by the government. Thus the US Constitution limits what the government can do - negotiating a treaty is a power given to the Federal Government, but eliminating Constitutional Rights of our individuals is not a power given to the Federal Government.
So, unless ICC has an exemption to exclude all issues that may step on our Bill of Rights and other Constitutional limits placed on the government (of which Criminal Justice is a part), there would be a Constitutional issue. (
Again, I am not discussing should/should not or good/not good, I am laying out facts to understand where the two sets don't intersect to explain why they are incompatible) Free Speech for example - some western countries has laws in place to limit or penalize Holocaust denial (Holocaust as in NAZI killing of Jews during WWII). Such law would be smack against our Free Speech rights. If it is a US law, it would be ruled unconstitutional, and eliminated from our laws. I can name a ton of such incompatibilities, but one is enough for illustration.
Yeah, our Constitution can be amended; but that would be a very high bar. Politicians can probably dance around things enough to get anything pass, but handing it over is pretty much giving the shop away (ie: outsourcing enforcement of a whole chunk of our Constitution). So, I am of the school that ICC is incompatible with our Constitution.