CARIBBEAN COMMUNITY leaders are facing a new test to their unity from the George Bush administration which has been manoeuvring to secure, in separate carrot-and-stick deals, extradition exemptions from their territories of American nationals who may be required to face trial for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
This is one of the more sensitive issues the community leaders will address in a caucus session when dealing with an ﾓexternal relationsﾔ agenda on matters of importance to CARICOM during their 24th annual summit that gets under way in Montego Bay, Jamaica, from Wednesday.
Arising from the recent meeting of attorneys general in Port-of-Spain, the CARICOM Secretariat has been requested to prepare a brief to help in guiding deliberations at this weekﾴs meeting of community leaders.
For all the diplomatic pressure tactics from Washington, no government of the 15-member community has yet acquiesced to the demand for an extradition waiver.
And questions have been raised about the accuracy of Washingtonﾴs claim that some 37 countries have already entered into such bilateral pacts to avoid prosecution of Americans by the ICC. Some 130 member states of the United Nations have signed the treaty for the creation of the ICC.
But the Bush administration stubbornly refuses to recognise the courtﾴs jurisdiction, although ex-President Bill Clinton had signed on just prior to leaving The White House.
Even Britain, Americaﾴs war partner against Iraq, has been critical of Washingtonﾴs attitude towards the ICC.
The US-based international human rights organisation, Human Rights Watch, has accused the Bush administration of ﾓputting itself on the wrong side of history…ﾔ
In the reckoning of at least two heads of government, this would be to ﾓcollude in undermining the legitimacy of the ICCﾔ to which CARICOM as a whole was committed to continue supporting.
One attorney general simply poured scorn on a mere US$1 million aid offer being dangled before a few community governments by Washingtonﾴs ﾓnegotiatingﾔ envoys to win support.
Talking tough
A delegation representing the George Bush administration has gone through the Caribbean region talking tough to some governments about likely cuts in socio-economic and military aid, including military training, unless they facilitate, by Tuesday, the requested immunity waiver.
This indecent pressure is an extension of what one British newspaper, The Guardian, has described as ﾓbrute diplomacyﾔ by Washington.
The Bahamas has denied reports of an ﾓagreement in principleﾔ having been reached with the United States, and has made it clear that it would be fully involved in CARICOMﾴs deliberation on the matter.
The Dominican Republic, not a member of CARICOM but involved in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of countries, may turn out to be the sole country in this region to yield to what Washington wants.
A question of relevance here is whether some CARICOM states may want to concur with Americaﾴs request for a waiver to create a precedent for them to be exempted, for whatever period, from the emerging Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) in order to continue access to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London.
Of the 130 nations that signed the treaty which brought the ICC into force a year ago, at least 89 have since ratified that treaty. Among them would be at least four CARICOM member states.
Since just 60 ratifications are necessary, it means that with 89 known ratifications, the ICC is now well placed to begin its work.
Among the first panel of 18 elected judges of the ICC sits the former attorney general of Trinidad and Tobago, Karl Hudson-Phillips. After endorsing him as the regionﾴs representative on the ICC, will CARICOM countries now make a farce of the legitimacy of the ICC by genuflecting to United States pressures to secure war crimes immunity?
Trinidad and Tobago, the identified headquarters location for the CCJ, is resolute in its opposition to such a United States waiver request.
The European Union, which has approved a one-year limit for the United States to clear up its policy on the jurisdiction of the ICC, has been advising its member states to strongly resist Washingtonﾴs demands for extradition exemptions from the ICC.
We should know before the Montego Bay summit winds up on Friday CARICOMﾴs collective response to Washingtonﾴs carrot-and-stick ploy to test the strength of unity within an economic grouping of sovereign states.
Rickey Singh, Barbados Daily
