**Serious Replies and or references** Plz help if you can answer this or refer me to any additional web cites!

Question

What are your inputs regarding the United States’ involvement with the International Criminal Court (ICC)?
What are the United States’ official position regarding the ICC?
Can you also briefly list and describe the sources of law that the ICC might utilize when trying a case?

Answer 1

http://www.icc-cpi.int/about.html is their official site and they aee governed by the Rome Statute! You can get a PDF on their site!

Establishment of the Court
Arabic

The International Criminal Court was established by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, so called because it was adopted in Rome, Italy on 17 July 1998 by the United Nations Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court. The Rome Statute is an international treaty, binding only on those States which formally express their consent to be bound by its provisions. These States then become “Parties” to the Statute. In accordance with its terms, the Statute entered into force on 1 July 2002, once 60 States had become Parties. Today, 104 States have become Parties to the Statute. The States Parties meet in the Assembly of States Parties which is the management oversight and legislative body of the Court.

Our position when we were trying Germans under a similar court was quite clear! When they (the original court) tried Reagan, it was different, even though America reneged on a commitment and violated the treaty!

Nicaragua v. United States
The Republic of Nicaragua v. The United States of America[1] was a case heard in 1986 by the International Court of Justice which found that the United States had violated international law by supporting Contra guerrillas in their war against the Nicaraguan government and by mining Nicaragua's harbors. The Court ruled in Nicaragua's favor, but the United States refused to abide by the Court's decision, on the basis that the court erred in finding that it had jurisdiction to hear the case,[2] The court stated that the United States had been involved in the "unlawful use of force".[3]

U.S. defense and response
The United States refused to participate in the merits phase of the proceedings, but the Court found that the US refusal did not prevent it from deciding the case. The Court also rejected the United States defense that its action constituted collective self-defense. The United States argued that the Court did not have jurisdiction, with U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick dismissing the Court as a "semi-legal, semi-juridical, semi-political body which nations sometimes accept and sometimes don't." [4]

The United States had signed the treaty accepting the Court's decision as binding, but with the exception that the court would not have the power to hear cases based on multilateral treaty obligations unless it involved all parties to the treaty or United States specially agrees to jurisdiction. The court found that it was obliged to apply this exception and refused to take on claims by Nicaragua based on the United Nations Charter and Organization of American States charter, but concluded that it could still decide the case based on customary international law obligations with 11-4 majority.

On November 3 1986 the United Nations General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution in order to pressure the U.S. to pay the fine. Only El Salvador, which also had disputes with Nicaragua, and Israel voted with the U.S. In spite of this resolution, the U.S. still elected not to pay the fine.