Resolved: The United States ought to submit to the jurisdiction of an international court designed to prosecute crimes against humanity. I negate
Definitions:
Ought: Used to express propriety, appropriateness (Random House)
Submit: To subject to a condition or process. (American Heritage)
Jurisdiction: The right and power to interpret and apply the law
United States: The U.S. federal government.
Observation 1: The burden on the affirmative for this round is to prove that an international court designed to prosecute crimes against humanity will be effective in doing so, and to then show why the U.S. ought to submit to its jurisdiction.
Value: Justice defined as – Giving each their due. This is the best value for the resolution because justice is the ultimate goal of all courts as part of a “Justice System”
Criterion: Preservation of individual rights this is my value criterion for this round for 2 reasons
1.Citizens of the United States are guaranteed certain rights and therefore, these rights are what they are due.
2.If any rights are violated, then it renders all rights irrelevant because it shows that the court can decide what rights people should and should not be given.
Contention 1: International courts violate US citizen’s rights
Subpoint A. International Courts Fail to Provide Due Process
In the United States we are guaranteed the right to an attorney, a speedy trial, and a jury of our peers. If the US submits to the jurisdiction of an international court designed to prosecute crimes against humanity, the US will be exposing US citizens to a court system without constitutional protections. The ICC and other international courts fail to provide speedy trials. The European Court of Human Rights became so overwhelmed with cases that it would take over five years for prosecutions to occur. This means that innocent men and women were prosecuted five years after their arrest and then released upon an acquittal. The lack of a speedy trial led to punishment before prosecution. The International Criminal Court also takes years to prosecute cases. The problem is that if the US gave up sovereignty to an international court, United States citizens would be subject to jail for five years prior to prosecutions even if they are later found to be innocent. Additionally, there is the fear of political prosecutions without proper protections. There is nothing in the ICC rules or in the European Court of Human Rights contract, which can control for political prosecution of United States officials and citizens. If a citizen of the United States or even our own president is abroad and a member-state of the ICC arrests them and brings that individual to the ICC court, there is no way to protect them once jurisdiction has been submitted. The US should respect international courts, but maintain sovereignty and protection of its citizens. If a US citizen violates
Human rights, it is the United States burden and responsibility to prosecute the accused.
Subpoint B: The courts create double jeopardy
John Rosenthal, March 2004 (A Lawless Global Court, Hoover Institution - Policy Review).
“All the organizations, whether international, governmental, or non-governmental, that have rallied to the ICC or other international courts go to great pains to stress that the Rome Statute offers all the due process protections of the American Constitution and, that it provides protection against double jeopardy. This is not so. If the expression “double jeopardy” is understood in the ordinary sense of American law and, the common law tradition, then not only does the statute not provide protection against double jeopardy; it also positively sanctions exposing defendants to double jeopardy. Article 81 of the statute authorizes the prosecutor to appeal an acquittal, precisely what double jeopardy protection is supposed to prevent.”
This is an extreme flaw in the international court system. If an international court is allowed to try someone for the same crime more than once, and the defendant has to wait five years for their case to be heard, a person could be held almost indefinitely in prison without ever being found guilty of any crime. If citizens of the US could be held without rights, it would lead to too much power for the international court which would be able to jail anyone for anything and keep them there while the person is tried over and over again.
Contention 2: Joining an international court will lead to violations of the constitution
David Scheffer & ASHLEY COX, CRIMINAL LAW: THE
CONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE ROME STATUTE OF THE INTERNATIONAL
CRIMINAL COURT, Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, Spring, 2008
"The international courts prosecute international crimes of the most significant character - genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and, potentially, aggression - and only when committed on scales of magnitude, substantiality, and often transnational character typically not found in domestic cases. The reality of the court’s subject matter jurisdiction over atrocity crimes has a critical bearing on whether U.S. ratification of the court would violate Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution which provides, in relevant part: "The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time establish." These courts have established rules which the United States, if it were to become a State Party, would be obligated to help pay for, cooperate with, elect judges and the Prosecutor to apply justice at, and, in certain circumstances, allow for the prosecution of U.S. citizens before, the ICC. The judicial power of the ICC, however, is not that of the United States. It is the power of an independent international criminal court, an international organization with "international legal personality" and bound to no government's direction or control, established by treaty among the sovereign nations of the world for a distinctly international purpose. If the United States were to ratify the treaty establishing the ICC, it would be an exercise of the Article II treaty power to build a uniquely-conceived international court and not an exercise of the Article III, Section 1 power to establish a domestic court."
I wrote this:
If the US submits to an international court, the US constitution would be superseded by an international courts authority; if a court is allowed to bypass the constitution then the constitution could be subject to change in itself because it will have been shown to have no authority over the US. The constitution was designed to protect citizen’s rights, and if it is overruled by an international court, will lead to the violation of all of the rights guaranteed by the constitution.