In recent weeks, many people have lauded President Joe Biden and his administration for flatly accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of committing war crimes in Ukraine.
Although these accusations clearly carry some weight in the global community, especially among allies of the United States, Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota is urging the U.S. to take steps that would make these statements carry more weight.
The U.S. is obviously wary of joining the court out of fear that some of our own officials might one day find themselves in its crosshairs.
On Thursday, Omar introduced a House resolution calling on the U.S. to join the International Criminal Court, the only permanent international court responsible for trying war crimes cases. She also introduced a bill to repeal a 2002 law barring the U.S. from cooperating with the court. That law, called the Hague Invasion Act by its opponents, effectively let American officials evade ICC punishments.
“Like many of us, I have recoiled in horror at reports of massacres, targeting of civilians, mass graves, and rapes by Russian forces,” Omar said in a statement Thursday, adding: “Vladimir Putin and anyone responsible must be held accountable.”
“Sadly, the U.S. is not party to the International Criminal Court, the principal body responsible for investigating and prosecuting these crimes,” she said.
Omar noted that U.S. resistance to joining the court rings of hypocrisy at a time when U.S. legitimacy on the global stage is needed to rally support for holding Russian officials accountable over the war in Ukraine.
“Our refusal to join the court is antithetical to our commitment to human rights, accountability, and the rule of law,” she said. “Now is our opportunity to lead the fight against human rights abuses and support international criminal justice.”
As Trita Parsi, an international diplomacy expert, wrote for MSNBC Daily earlier this week, perceptions of Russia’s attack on Ukraine among non-Western countries, including many in Africa and Asia, differ at least somewhat from views held in the West.
Though these countries “largely sympathize with the plight of the Ukrainian people and view Russia as the aggressor,” they have trouble bowing to Western demands on how to respond to the war, Parsi wrote. This reluctance likely stems from U.S. hypocrisy on international order. (See: America’s history of seemingly unlawful-yet-unpunished military actions, like the war in Iraq.)
That aligns with a point Joy made on an episode on “The ReidOut” last week, when she noted leaders of African countries have been among the most frequently charged and convicted of war crimes by the ICC.
The U.S. is obviously wary of joining the court out of fear that some of our own officials might one day find themselves in its crosshairs. But at the same time, Russia’s war on Ukraine has no clear end in sight. If we truly want to curry favor with the global community in order to curb Russia’s authoritarian expansion, it will likely require the U.S. subjecting itself to the same standards American officials want the world to apply to the Kremlin.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.