If George Bush is trying to get American Servicemen immunity from punishment for Human Rights violations it makes you wonder what he's planning to tell them to do doesn't it? Or does he think that investigators are already on to something they've already done? What is his justification for American Servicemen to be allowed by the International Community to do these things?

In a word - Kissinger.

Then there's Rumsfield and Helms and...

Perhaps your question was rhetorical? ;-)

Where's it gone? I posted the whole thing, and now it's gone!

Post it again.

As soldiers from several European armies deploy under the Nato flag in Macedonia, their limited aim being to oversee disarmament by ethnic Albanian rebels, many commentators are pointing to the bitter lessons learned from 50 years' experience of international policing efforts by the UN. These show how much easier it is to send soldiers to troubled areas than to extricate them. But Nato's efforts to promote peace in the Balkans are honourable, and they reflect an important and welcome development: the increasing reluctance of the world community to stand aside when conflicts and atrocities occur.

Central to this development is the establishment of the International Criminal Court to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity. The ICC came notionally into existence two years ago when UN member states signed a treaty in Rome. The court is designed to be a standing forum for bringing to justice the likes of Hitler, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein and Pinochet, along with those responsible for atrocities of the kind perpetrated in Rwanda and the Balkans. At present temporary ad hoc tribunals handle such indictments; the aim of the ICC is to replace them with a proper permanent court.

But the US, which under President Clinton was a reluctant and tardy signatory to the Rome treaty, is now working to exempt American nationals from the ICC's jurisdiction altogether. This endeavour runs counter to the new international mood, and is not only unacceptable in itself, but calls the ICC's future into question.

Since the end of the cold war the US has increased its military presence in all regions of the world, most notably in the Far East, the Gulf, Europe and South America, all of which it describes as "the American perimeter". President George Bush's administration has not signalled any desire to reduce the reach of Washington's military power, although - very worryingly - it has been quick to state an intention to withdraw from a number of major international agreements which restrain that power, including nuclear proliferation and germ warfare treaties.

Most troubling of all is America's reneging on the Rome treaty. It wishes to be exempt from the ICC's jurisdiction because it does not want its soldiers and politicians liable for prosecution by an international tribunal for anything America does in its multiple theatres of influence. A telling example of why is demonstrated by Christopher Hitchens's recent book, which shows that Henry Kissinger is a highly plausible candidate for the dock of the ICC in light of his responsibility for American activities in Vietnam, Cambodia, Chile and elsewhere during his tenure of office in the Nixon administration.

Precisely for that reason the US wishes to place itself above the law. It is happy to see people like Radovan Karadzic tried at the Hague, but it does not wish its own citizens to be judged by the same standards. Yet there is no difference in principle between the Serbian atrocity at Srebrenica and the actions of Lieutenant William Calley and his platoon at My Lai in Vietnam. The nature of the crimes is the same, and all principles of justice require that the similar crimes receive similar punishment.

The US acts as world policeman not out of charity but because it serves its own economic and security interests by doing so. But it cannot sustain that role if it claims exemption from the standards it wishes everyone else to observe. And in trying to be thus exempt, it stands in the way of one of the most important advances ever made for humanity: the prospect of at last enforcing the internationally agreed human rights standards which the UN adopted after the horrors of the Holocaust.

The ICC's constitution, and the current state of the world, present formidable practical obstacles to its effectiveness. But that is no objection to the ICC's existence and the hopes it offers for the future. Its establishment is not a panacea; tyranny and murder are not going to stop as soon as enough countries have ratified the Rome treaty. But its establishment is a step, and a highly important one, in a journey that began with adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. The declaration and its associated conventions are now influential in international and domestic law worldwide. What has always been lacking is teeth to make these instruments effective. The ICC is the first move towards realising that goal.

The principle behind the ICC is that the world community should have what any civilised national community has, namely a properly constituted means of dealing with crime and wrong. The Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after the second world war provided precedents for prosecuting human rights violations but they, like the current Hague tribunal, were ad hoc. A permanent institution for these same purposes is obviously preferable.

Part of the aim of the ICC is to be a deterrent. If a future Pol Pot knew he could be called to international account, he might behave differently. More importantly, it offers the hope of justice in place of revenge for wrongs done; it offers the possibility of redress to victims; it assists processes of healing and reconciliation after conflicts, something not always possible without the execution of justice on behalf of victims or their relatives. And it offers a chance of truth, or something anyway better than rumour and legend, in the record of human rights crimes.

Some object that, despite the principle of complementarity embodied in the Rome treaty (which provides that where national law is sufficient for what the ICC might otherwise do, it takes precedence), it nevertheless reduces the sovereignty of nation states. The answer is that such a reduction, in the appropriate respect and degree, is a good thing.

Others object that a process of "judicial creep" will extend the ICC's powers to competence over, say, drug smuggling and environmental pollution. But such extensions are desirable, given the globalisation of the world economy and the interdependence of the world comity. Nor is it beyond the wit of man to see where the ICC's jurisdiction should most effectively be applied, and where not.

Others object to the potential cost of the ICC. The answer is that peace and justice are always worth paying for - and that includes compensation and aid for survivors of rape, bombing and ethnic cleansing.

The Rome treaty is one of the more hopeful things to have happened in recent years. America's bid to wreck it, or at least to stand aside from it, is not just unworthy but unacceptable. It is up to the rest of the world community to insist that the US should live by the same civilised rules that its own wisest counsel sees as desirable for everyone else.

• AC Grayling teaches at Birkbeck College, London

Amerikans will not be content until they control the entire thing. They have so much fanatical belief in their system that they believe that not only are they above the law but they created law. They are now exporting it to the rest of the world. Amerika is the new empire! Invade with capitalism and conquer with law. They have only been at it a short time but it is clear to them that the world now is contingent upon them. Granted it is a more passive approach to imperialism than one could envision, but the end result will be the same. Empire: Amerika!
The people of the world must resist and support those few Americans now involved with the anti globalization movement.
Please correspond.  carlosmalvado@hotmail.com