THE United States really knows how to kill justice.
Yesterday, US President Donald Trump issued an executive order imposing sanctions on two top officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC) — chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and senior official Phakiso Mochochoko.
Reason? For investigating US citizens who saw action in Afghanistan for possible international crimes. What Trump is saying is that Americans are above the law. In the eyes of Trump and others who went before him, Americans are a peculiar breed. Laws are for "them" and not for "us". There are two ironies here that Americans miss.
Firstly, the US did play a key role in shaping the 1998 Rome Treaty, which created the ICC. The intent of Washington then was, as it is today, that the long arm of the law must not be long enough to reach US citizens. They are the "untouchables".
Never mind if they commit war crimes, genocide or crimes against humanity. Such crimes are all done in the national interest of the US. To Americans, national interest trumps international crimes. Others would have none of this dual pathway to justice. Thus, was the Rome Treaty infamously "unsigned" by then US president George W. Bush.
Now for the second irony. Having swiftly put international justice to death, Trump is running a campaign of law-and-order at home. One law for him and his supporters and one law for the rest of Americans. The world is not so easily fooled.
For it has a long memory. Close to two decades ago, the US did make a similar threat. This time to Jordan. The Middle Eastern country was given an ultimatum: sign a pact with the US to not surrender Americans to the ICC or lose millions in US aid. We were glad then, and we are glad still, that Jordan's King Abdullah Al-Hussein stood his ground. It was not the first time and it would not be the last for such US coercions.
The US has a long history of threatening state parties to the Rome Treaty with a cut in aid if they refuse to sign what the US administration describes as bilateral immunity agreements. Sadly, needy nations were coerced into complying.
Money and might have been the weapons of choice for the US for the longest time. A portion of the world may have looked with hope to a rising China, but the dragon, too, seems to be money and might bound. If the US was money or might, China's strategy seems to be money first, then might.
The ICC rightly labelled the sanctions as serious attacks against the rule of law. If before there was a pretence of the US being on the side of the law, now it is clear that it is not. What rule-bound nation will persecute law officers?
The US seems to think that the ICC is going after the Americans when the truth is the tribunal has been trying more Africans than Americans. On the contrary, no American has been sentenced by the ICC simply because there is always a Trump or a Bush making sure that doesn't happen.
If so-minded presidents were to leave office, there are quite a few bi-and multilateral agreements that prevent Americans from being arrested by the ICC. The world cannot be so bifurcated. Justice demands one law for all. Not double standards.