WORDLPEACEfdu

Impediments
to Peace:

United States
Political & Moral Willpower Into the 21^st Century &
Beyond

"The
Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations,
to settle any international dispute in which they may have been
involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace
and security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their
international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner
inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations."

---------
The North Atlantic Treaty - Article I, (4 April 1949)

I.
Introduction

Insofar as
endeavoring objectively to effectuate world peace and perpetual human
survival, no first world superpower in the 20th century has invoked
greater rhetorical claims waging war is a reasonable means to achieve
the eventual end of constructing world peace, than the Untied States
of America. This paper critically analyzes this widely held
political prescription that “Might Makes Right,” as a
means for effectuating Kant’s noble goal of Perpetual Peace,
whilst re-examining its continued feasibility into the 21^st
century. It additionally argues the United States failure to
objectively practice the identical high minded human rights political
and moral willpower it demands less powerful states' adhere to,
seriously damages both United States respectability and credibility
before other United Nations member states within the United Nations
purview. The conclusion emphasizes wherefore world peace and
perpetual human survival will not be achieved unless the United
States and its future foreign policy initiatives include objectively
practicing customarily accepted international legal norms of the
Geneva Convention as well as America subjecting itself as a nation to
a newly constructed international criminal court.

It hopes that
America’s willingness to do so will both remedying the
aforementioned credibility issue America now faces at the United
Nations as well as ensuring the United States is always viewed as the
shining beacon of democracy our Founding Father's envisaged when they
arrived at Plymouth Rock.

2. 
   The
   Relationship Between the United States and the International
   Criminal Court

   
   

American human
rights scholars, advisors to the American President and other high
ranking military officials have always tended migrating towards one
of two bipolar views in analyzing the future directions of American
foreign policy, human rights objectives and preventive diplomacy.
Scholars on one hand purport the United States continually fails
producing the necessary political and moral willpower objectively
insofar as implementing the identical high-minded humanitarian and
social justice standards it demands other less powerful developing
states adhere. And by doing so, these same scholars assert America
continually fails to lead the world by genuine democratic example.
It is moreover argued that the aforementioned is a social fact owing
to the many occasions that America itself has committed gross
violations of human rights by breaching international criminal law,
the ¹United
Nations Charter, NATO’s Treaty and of violating many other
important internationally agreed upon Treaties including the Geneva
Conventions on War Crimes (1948).²

This has been
increasingly manifest in the American news media after the
Afghanistan and Iraqi invasion by its coverage of all types of
alleged torture treatment made by American soldiers in their handling
of prisoners of war from those regions. Many say this was also made
manifest during the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia when NATO had used
depleted uranium and cluster bombs against Serbia, both are
internationally contraband weapons.³
It is the strongly held view of this group of political scholars
that the such acts implemented by the United States during times of
war undermine global social justice for all as well as the importance
of upholding important human rights standards meant to enshrine human
dignity for humanity at home and abroad. Maintaining this remains
one of the largest impediments left in achieving world peace, they
also claim the incessant objections emanating from certain United
States politicians such as Republican Senator Jesse Helms whom
vehemently opposes the United States subjecting itself to an
International Criminal Court makes of mere mockery of the United
States human rights record manifesting American western liberal
democracy as purely hypocritical before the rest of the world.

The
other most largely held bipolar scholarly argument asserts itself as
‘The Third Way.’ Its theoretical creator English scholar
Anthony Giddens is Director of London’s School of Economics as
well as the man perhaps known best as being British Prime Minister
Tony Blair's political guru. Giddens himself defines this view as
being the new democratic and moral state imperative into the 21^st
century forward. According to Giddens view, both America and Britain
are what he considers, new democratic states. This concept of
the new democratic state into the 21^st century
purports the position that first world democratic powers no longer
bound by the United Nations and its customarily accepted
international criminal legal norms.

According to
those espousing his theoretical argument, powerful democratic
countries like America possess a new modish capacity. They exist as
democratic role models for other non-democratic states such as Serbia
and Cuba who must be willing to model their governments after that of
the new democratic states. Furthermore Giddens supports the position
the United States and England dictate declarations of war and peace
by this moral political imperative of making the world safe for
democracy, a take on Woodrow Wilson’s democratic peace theory.
This is seen in his viewpoint that America and Britain possess
privileges or moral political imperatives that as powerful new
democratic states, they possess the right to intervene militarily
unilaterally, without United Nations Security Council approval, in
the political affairs of non-democratic governed sovereign states in
order to alter their political structure and make them western styled
democratic states in governance.

Exemplary of
Giddens’ new moral foreign policy initiatives are manifest in
NATO’s military intervention in Kosovo in 1999 and Bosnia in
1991. Giddens like his successor former United
States President Woodrow Wilson strongly believes global world peace
can’t be achieved until every nation/state in the world
espouses, and objectively practices western styled liberal democratic
governance. This means in the most basic sense, that powerful
democratic states possess a special God given privilege as well as a
special political moral imperative to help the rest of the world
construct world peace. And this future envisioned world peace will
only come after the United States and Britain coerce militarily (if
necessary) the rest of the world to espouse and model themselves
after western liberal democracies. Scholars of ‘The Third Way’
believe that America and its western European allies have the
exclusive right to ‘renew social democracy wherever it can be
implemented.

This
justification has been used by both the Clinton administration in its
unilateral 199 bombing of Serbia as well as the Bush administration
in its invasion of both Afghanistan and Iraq. The former group of
scholars argue this point of view is not only hypocritical, but that
no state in the world possesses the exclusive privilege to wage war
unilaterally on another sovereign state without prior approval by the
other United Nations member states and the Security Council. Both
groups may agree that in a post-Cold War world, when any internal
state conflict erupts such as genocidal civil war, this is indicative
that political change is imperative in the patterns of the way in
which that particular state previously governed itself.

VI.
What America Can Do

Only time will
tell whether the seemingly never ending debate between all these
competing groups of human rights scholars will resolve itself and if
the future path of United States foreign policy will take a more
internationalist approach. In the meantime however, America can
advocate a more positive stance and assist the United Nation member
states and itself in effectuating future world peace by leading by
objective democratic example and not in mere political principle
alone. Principle without practice is as useless as the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights without being implemented globally to all
humanity. Both sad and ironic is that ever since the development of
international criminal law and associated tribunals began, America,
the world’s greatest democratic superpower continues resisting
their influence. At this junction it is not necessary to go into a
lengthy discussion as to why. By now political analysts should be
acquainted with the field well enough to realize America primarily
has resisted subjecting itself to the same international legal
standards it demands other less powerful states adhere to owing
solely to concerns:

1. 
   That former
   United States Officials such as Doctor Henry Kissinger will one day
   be extradited to the Hague War Crimes tribunal on alleged war crimes
   they themselves may have committed during time served in office;

   
   

2. 
   Servicemen/women
   on Duty in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq will similarly be
   summoned to the Hague or future International Criminal Court should
   one be constructed for committing war crimes. Exemplary is the
   recent manifestation of the sex war crimes committed by U.S. female
   servicewoman, Lindsey England, in Iraq (See cover of New York July
   2004);

   
   

3. 
   And that the
   United States, in and of itself will be constrained in pursuing its
   own narrow national state interests by a future international
   criminal court with legal jurisdiction over America in an equal
   manner it would other states such as Yugoslavia.

   
   

However, during
the summer (June 1998), the United States possessed a strong enough
interest to send several important diplomatic representatives to Rome
Italy to participate in the original drafting of the Rome Statute.⁴
The United States was particularly interested in drafting the part
of the Rome Statute Rules governing the prosecution of war crimes.
Particularly those war crime rules governing the prosecution of those
persons allegedly found guilty of perpetrating war crimes, evidence,
procedure and various protections for those accused of war
committing crimes. On (December 31st 2000), former United States
President Bill Clinton finally signed the Rome Statute immediately
prior leaving office.

However, many
human rights scholars claim he did so only to ensure the United
States is included in future ICC meetings safeguarding America’s
continual right to partake in forming a new International Criminal
Court, if created. After George W. Bush Junior took over
presidential office (May 2000) he explicitly denounced the United
States would be bound by Clinton’s signature on to the Rome
Statute. In fact both Bush and Clinton have acted aggressively to end
all and any cooperation with a newly formed international criminal
court as well as the with United Nations Security Council on matters
pertaining to world peace when it pertains to United States national
security interests.

This is made
manifest by their statements as is follows:

"In
signing (the Rome Statute 2000)…we are not abandoning our
concerns about significant flaws in the Treaty…The US should
have the chance to observe and assess the functioning of the court,
over time, before choosing to become under its jurisdiction. I will
not, and do not recommend that my successor, submit the Treaty to the
Senate for advice and consent until our fundamental concerns are
satisfied."

"We
in (2002) should isolate and ignore the ICC. Specifically, I propose
for United States policy-I have got a title for it…I call it
the Three Noes: no financial support, directly or indirectly; no
collaboration; and no further negotiations with other governments to
improve the Statute…This approach is likely to maximize the
chances that the ICC will wither and collapse, which should be our
objective."⁵

III.
United States Political Willpower v.
World Peace

United States
security, economic interests and United States cooperation with the
United Nations Security Council in matters of world security remain
bipolar. Exemplary, was the case when the International Court of
Justice ruled against the United States in 1984 when it allegedly
illegally invaded Nicaragua being guilty itself of committing war
crimes and threatening international peace and security.

Similar
statements emanating from key American politicians seriously
undermined if not permanently damaged United States credibility in
delicate diplomatic matters, as also uncover the United States a
morally bankrupt insofar as human rights and social justice. Issues
such as these have placed a diplomatic wedge between the United
States and other non-western, non-liberal governed states such as
Iraq, China, Russia and Yugoslavia. Some human rights scholars also
maintain that they increase the risk of terrorist activities
currently directed against America and its citizenry by Islamic
fundamentalist groups such as, Al-Qaeda. Thus, such statements have
only helped make a mockery of United States and its high-minded human
rights rhetoric as it unilaterally uses militarism to invade
sovereign states while superseding United Nations Security Council
approval first. This is the case in both Clinton’s decision to
bomb Kosovo (1999) as well as in Bush’s current military
involvement in Iraq.

IV.
Consequences of United States Credibility At the United Nations

This current
one-sided trajectory the United States now takes in guiding its
future foreign policy directives involving militarism, in and of
itself has been injurious to United States credibility at the United
Nations Assembly. Unfortunately, the Vienna Convention gives
ambassadors total immunity from prosecution, even during times of war
(Article 31) from the minute the take up their post until they leave
the host country. The international community has had limited
success prosecuting some such as Hitler and have aided others escape.

The United States
is infamous for assisting condemned war criminals flee into exile The
United States gave ex President Aristide of Haiti a place of exile in
America from his unlawful killing of civilians in Haiti during the
time he served as President of that country. Another instance was
when the Marcos family fled to Hawaii in 1986. Ferninand Marcos was
a dictator from the Philippines who for over 13 years personally
dictated disappearances and torture interrogations. And the list
goes on including the famous Augusto Pinochet case in which Margaret
Thatcher and Henry Kissinger hope to escape being indicted themselves
for military supporting his coup in Chili (1973).⁶

V. The
United States and International Criminal
Law

Similarly on May
9^th 1999, United Nations Human Rights Commissioner, Mary
Robinson stated that:

"people are
not collateral damage [inverse to what top NATO leaders in
particularly what English Prime Minister Jamie Shea proclaimed
publicly that accidentally killing hundreds of Yugoslav civilians via
NATO bombs were merely “Collateral damages”], people are
people."

Diplomats,
attorneys and many other high ranking international politicians such
as South Korean Foreign Minister Hong Soon-Young, Russian President
Boris Yeltsin, Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and many
Canadian scholars have been vocally criticizing NATO (1999 Kosovo
Crisis) and George W. Bush Junior’s invading Iraq 2004)
stating:

"From the
beginning, the United States and NATO act in an imperial and
uncontrolled manner by repeatedly circumventing Article 2 of the
United Nations Charter, and also its own Charter [OAS] the Vienna
Convention on the Laws and Treaties, and the Helsinki Accords of 1975
and unilaterally acting on its own national interests without concern
for world peace and human rights."

As international
criminal law progresses, lawsuits and complaints against the United
States and the NATO member states have been flooding the Hague where
the Int'l Court of Criminal Justice (IJC) is located alleging that
NATO leaders be held equally accountable for their own alleged war
crimes against world peace.

Over ten
countries have indicted former United States politicians such as
Henry Kissinger and Bill Clinton for being complicit in the plotting
and waging of unauthorized war against other sovereign nation-states.
Many of these Western politicians have also been repeatedly refused
VISA’s and entry into foreign countries. There also were
several arrest several warrants issued in Europe and also in the
Balkan’s for many top NATO leader’s including former
United States President, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair for spearheading
NATO’s use of unauthorized force against Yugoslavia (1999)’.
NATO's former Cold-War theme that "an attack on one [member of
the NATO] is considered as an attack upon all NATO members",
cannot account for the NATO military aggression launched against
Yugoslavia for 78 days last year.

Even former
Nuremberg Prosecutor, Benjamin Ferencz, strongly advocates United
States resistance to the ICC endangers world security in stating:

"The
greatest step forward in promoting the law of peace took place in
Nuremberg after World War Two. The International Military Tribunal
(IMT) Charter listed only three crimes that would come within the
Court's jurisdiction. The first [was] war Crimes Against Peace,
namely the planning, preparation, initiation or waging of war."

U.S. officials
increasingly fear that they themselves could come under the scrutiny
and suspicion of a newly established ICC. Especially in light of the
fact that in: "1996, the International law Commission composed
of 34 "independent experts" completed work on the draft
Code of Crimes that had first been ordered by the UN Charter in 1946.
It described "aggression" as a "customary law crime"
and created a "peremptory norm"---irrevocably binding on
all UN member states to abide by it."

The entire
matter throws an ominous shadow of shame upon the United States of
America and its leaders as we enter a new millennium and must not be
neglected. Especially in light of the NATO's latest political
objectives of expanding its original mandate regarding the Warsaw
Pact to transforming itself into an international and unilateral
global police force unconditionally independent from any UN Security
Council scrutiny.

Now more than
ever the time for establishing of an ICC is vital to global human
survival and establishing future world peace. Even if the U.S.
continues to resist subjecting itself to an ICC the court became
active in 2002 after 105 states ratified the Treaty and the Rome
Statute became the compulsory collective international legal rule of
law for the entire world in lieu of the NATO's unilateral militarism.
To elucidate the grave primacy of this matter, in a special report
published by the USIP regarding the NATO's 50^th
Anniversary celebration, held April 23-25^th (1999), the
USIP reports regarding the new NATO mandate of "humanitarian
intervention":

"Within the
alliance, Non-Article 5 missions may vary…Such missions
(backed primarily by both the U.S. and U.K.) are described by
Americans as "crisis response operations" (an activist
approach)…implying that such [military] missions would only be
used to [enforce coercively and to] support a peace agreement)."

What is striking
and most disturbingly remarkable abut the aforementioned complaints
being filed by Milosevic and others against the U.S. and its NATO
counterparts at the Hague (ICJ) is they are becoming increasingly
more difficult for the U.S and their NATO leaders counter. Scholars
of human rights and international criminal law have been primarily
conceding with local law officials in Beograd Serbia stating:

"that NATO
violated international humanitarian law…and that NATO may have
breached the Geneva Convention in five areas: it conducted air
attacks using cluster bombs near populated areas, attacked targets of
questionable legitimacy; did not take adequate measures to warn
civilians of strikes…"

Inverse to the
rhetorical proclamations made by many U.S. governmental officials,
the United States has shown itself to be entirely more interested in
judging the alleged human rights records of other countries more than
its own. Exemplary is the U.S. State Dept. web site (www.state.gov)
on which is listed all of the alleged human rights violations
committed by every country in the world, except for the U.S. This
U.S. brushing off of its own moral political obligation to uphold its
own human right instrument, the Organization of American States, has
steadily declined since World War Two.

This sad social
historical fact is revealed when inquiring into the history of the
U.S. and its past human rights track record with respect to the
world's former and present international criminal tribunals.

The first attempt
to establish an international criminal court was in 1907 during the
Second Hague Conference at the suggestion of former U.S. President
Theodore Roosevelt. He proposed an International Court of Justice
would:

"Decide
between nations, great or small, exactly as a judge within our own
limits [U.S. Western Courts] decides between individuals, great or
small…"

The reasons for
which Roosevelt's idea to establish an international criminal court
died in committee are both mysterious and controversial, yet worth
examining. Perhaps the idea died owing to many Non-western governed
states and their associated societies composed of primarily
traditional cultural communities whose governance is not premised
upon Western political philosophical principles being highly
skeptical of submitting themselves to a Western styled international
criminal tribunal. After all, much of this same skepticism is still
very prevalent today within the UN international relations purview
and is manifested in the following statements given by an African
Head of State:

"No one
but us understands the motives upon which we act. Imperialists talk
about human rights, drinking tea or sipping champagne. They can
afford to--after all, they have it made. If we had slaves for 200
years to build our roads, build our homesteads, sow our fields; if we
had multinationals for 300 years looting wealth from other people's
lands; if we had literate, healthy, well-fed citizens---if we had a
diversified economy and people had jobs---we too could talk human
rights from our air conditioned offices and homes. But we can't do
it; we have nothing."

In another
instance a Junior Minister joined in saying:

"You know,
professor, we wish imperialists could understand that the sick and
hungry have no use for freedom of movement or of speech. Maybe of
worship! Hunger dulls the hearing and stills the tongue. Poverty and
lack of roads, trains, or buses negate freedom of movement. You know,
freedom to own private property alone is demanded by less than 1%
here---those who had collaborated with imperialists in robbing the
poor masses. The poor are grateful and glad to share."

Whether this was
the problem at that time, we will never truly know. What we do know
is that two world wars have yet to teach the most powerful Superpower
in the world, the U.S., either the lessons or legacies of
strategically planning, instigating, engaging and waging aggressive
war. Two world wars have failed to teach many U.S. political
leaders the grave importance of working towards permanently
capitulating aggressive war altogether in order to safeguard against
the possible future extinction of humanity. Let's face it, the world
is not getting any safer insofar as nuclear weapons are concerned and
one atom bomb can ruin your whole day. Moreover, more persons have
died in genocidal civil wars since 1945 than in all of both the
former world wars together:

"Since 1945,
some 135 wars, most of them in the developing world, have killed more
than 22 million people--the equivalent of World War III..."

This paper is the
first part of a multi-volume series of works discussing various
impediments to the attainment of world peace. The clear continued
lack of genuine Political Willpower on the part of the U.S. to
assist the rest of the world and in particular the European Community
in establishing a permanent International Criminal Court with
compulsory jurisdiction over all nation-states constitutes part one
of this series. This author shares the opinion of former Nuremberg
Prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz regarding the primary impediment to
achieving World Peace and Global Human Survival. Undoubtedly, the
greatest impediment to attaining world peace is the fault of, and
also falls upon those member states within the international
relations purview and the UN such as Germany, the U.S. and U.K. For
these three states primary bare responsibility for stalling the
establishment of an International Criminal Court. According to
Ferencz:

"Every
effort should be made to obtain the widest possible acceptance of the
proposed International Criminal Court. Once all views have been
heard, bickering must stop and decisive action taken. The number of
signatories required…[to establish a treaty effectuating an
international criminal court]…should be kept to the minimum
needed to make the court operational; it should not exceed fifty."

No treaty is
officially binding upon any nation-state until embedded into its
domestic law such as in Europe. Both sad an ironic is that the U.S.
cannot even obtain the required two third vote from its own Senate in
order to ratify a Treaty that would establish an new International
Criminal Court with compulsory jurisdiction to impose its legal
adjudication's upon every country equitably. As read in Global
Survival, unlike the U.S., most of Europe has already established the
EEC (Court of European Communities). The EEC and its affiliated CJEC
(Court of Justice of European Communities) does possess compulsory
legal jurisdictions to impose its legal decisions upon its members by
superceding any European domestic law. It is also accessible to
individuals, states and corporation. This has been the cause of much
friction now existing between European states and the United States
regarding imposing political and economic sanctions against
Yugoslavia, Cuba, Iraq and Iran. In 1985 the U.S. withdrew itself
from the legal jurisdiction of the ICJ (International Court of
Justice) after the court rendered the U.S. guilty of committing "war
like acts". Thus U.S. Presidents and their associated political
entourages seemingly prefer judging other counties rather than their
own. This is clearly seen in the U.S. clearly rejecting to be bound
by the Treaty of the Laws of the Sea. Ferencz states in:

"December
1982, at Montego Bay in Jamaica, 119 delegates from 117 states signed
the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. It was an unprecedented and
monumental achievement that had taken over 14 years of work by
representatives of more than 150 countries…The sea-bed, the
vast area not immediately contigeous to national boundaries, was
declared to be "the common heritage of mankind. (Art. 136) Its
resources were to be used for the benefit of mankind as a
whole….[However] as in all such treatise there were some
states that would not accept some of its provisions. The United
States, that had the minig capacity to mine the seabed, was not
inclined to accept the diktat, or controls of any independent
authority regarding its actions on or under the high seas."

U.S. strategic
economic and political interests have often taken precedence over
upholding democracy and fundamental human rights (social and economic
as well as political and civic) in countries such as Iraq, Cuba and
Yugoslavia. As Ferencz states:

"Sovereign
states should realize that there is no danger in voluntarily
accepting certain restrains for the common good [of all
humanity]…States must finally summon the political courage to
accept universal "rules of the road" that bind everyone for
the benefit of everyone."

Now is the time
for all UN member states (past, present and upon new admission) to
concur it is wisdom to avoid war by at very least, making it
mandatory for UN member states to both recognize and ratify in their
domestic law, the three Nuremberg Principle war crimes. Nothing less
but the immediate establishment of an International Criminal Court
can guarantee that their will still be a world left for our world's
future posterity so that as Ferencz states:

"Never
Again would aggression, genocide, crimes
against humanity and war crimes be
tolerated without punishment of the
perpetrators."

In light of the
aforementioned international development of NATO expansion without UN
Security Council approval of its unilateral humanitarian militarism,
the dialectic tensions holding the delicate balance of world peace
together are becoming increasingly undone daily. The U.S political
leaders must come to terms with the idea that sharing the world's
wealth with other countries is far better than obliterating Earth and
all of humanity altogether. It is as sad as it is ironic that the
U.S. elite politicians cannot view this issue with the same
rationality others seem to be capable. The world community in the
21^st century will undoubtedly face many new challenges.
Moreover, the growing uncertainty as to whether the future
international relations purview regarding world peace, security and
human rights will become better or worse than the previous century
remains to be seen. In addition, the tensions existing between the
duties of states to uphold and abide by the UN Charter while
simultaneously trying to uphold the fundamental human rights issues
and also sustaining world peace for the entire world in its diversity
will continue to grow. Yet, the U.S. has still remained strongly
opposed to the idea of establishing an international criminal court
and abiding by its fair rulings. Time will tell whether the world
will lean towards world peace or world war in the future.
Notwithstanding, the fact remains evident that unless the U.S. will
work with the rest of the world community in trying to achieve world
peace, it risks the possibility of possible human destruction by way
of its own nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Let us hope the U.S.
along with the rest of the world community of rational men and women
chose the former and not the latter path.

1
Please see United Nations Commission reports on: El Salvador,
Honduras, Chile, East Timor, Guatemala and Kosovo where the United
States supported regimes committing genocide and other atrocities.

2
Present United States President George Bush, similarly to his
successor William J. Clinton both superseded the United Nations
Charter as well as other important international treaties America is
signature to by unilaterally acting militarily in Iraq (2004) and
Kosovo (1999). On March 26^th 1999, Thomas Campbell
(R-San Jose-C.A.) and fourteen other senators claimed Bill Clinton
violated the War Powers Act (1973) as well as constitutional law
which gives not the United States President but the congress the
legal right to declare war against another sovereign state if
“aggression” against the said state (in this case the
state was Serbia and Montenegro) continues for over 60 days by any
Presidential Executive Order. The Senators attempted to take former
president Clinton to court at the time. The War Powers Act was
implemented but congress post Vietnam to prevent another war like it
in the future.

3
NATO admitted using internationally banned weaponry during its 1999
bombing raid on Serbia and Montenegro which included depleted
uranium and cluster bombs. This resulted in an escalation of
leukemia and other cancers and some of the same birth defects seen
manifest with the Gulf War Syndrome. Depleted Uranium is still
widely used owing to its effectiveness in destroying tanks. The
uranium oxide from such bullets, when inhaled by humans allows for
dangerously painful fire hot particles about 0.5 microns across to
settle in the victims chest. The equivalent would be for a human to
subject themselves to about twenty chest X-rays per hour. Nearly
all NATO and Western European cruise missiles fired during the 1999
air raids contained DU in their warheads. DU has been classified as
a contraband weapon of mass destruction and illegal to deploy
according to the Geneva Conventions on war crimes [Cited from the
KDOM Daily Report, released by the Bureau of European and Canadian
Affairs, Office of South Central European Affairs, U.S. Department
of State, Washington D.C., December 21, 1999; Compiled by EUR/SCE
(202-647-4850) from daily reports of the U.S. element of the Kosovo
Diplomatic Observer Mission, December 21, 1999].

4
The Rome Conference Treaty was held in Rome (1998) where 120 nations
converged to adopt a statute securing an International Criminal
Court during a five week conference. Twenty-one nations abstained
and seven were opposed including: the United States, Israel, China
and India. From July 2002 forward, war crimes against humanity
committed anywhere in the world will at least in theory be subject
to prosecution and the ICC’s international jurisdiction.

5
These statements can be found on the World Federalist Web Site at:
http://www.unausa.org/site/pp.asp?c=fvKRI8MPJpF&b=345925
(Home Page 1)

6
Augusto Pinochet as the first head of state to be indicted by the
ICC for committing acts of murder and torture against the civilian
population in Chili in the 1970s.