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ble."12

Similarly, Lloyd Axworthy, Canada's minister of foreign

affairs and a proponent of the court, maintains,

[There is] an acute dilemma for the United Na-

tions, which finds itself torn between intervening

in severe humanitarian crises and respecting na-

tional sovereignty.  To date, it has responded

largely on an ad hoc basis, although always with

the terrible lessons of Central Africa and the

former Yugoslavia in mind.  Gradually, though, new

ways of thinking are emerging that address this

dilemma. . . . A key element of this new thinking

is what has been called "human security."  Essen-

tially, this is the idea that security goals

should be primarily formulated and achieved in

terms of human, rather than state, needs. . . .

[We start] from the premise that the threat to

life and limb of millions of individuals should

take precedence over military and national securi-

ty interests.13

Finally, Judge Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, an American

judge sitting on the Yugoslavia tribunal, admits that the

proposed ICC creates tension between "state sovereignty and

world order,"14 but she nevertheless insists that the ICC

must be able to employ "an element of compulsion" in order

"to redress gross violations of human rights and interna-

tional law."15  She also says that the ICC treaty "should be

one of principle and not of detail. . . . [It should] be a

flexible statute based on principles which may be developed

by the court as the circumstances require while still pro-

viding sufficient guidance to establish an international

framework within which the court can work."16  But how is

the public to judge the merits of the ICC if its proponents,

like Judge McDonald, cannot explain the details?

The Threat of Expansive Jurisdiction

Although the preamble of the ICC draft statute states

that the "court is intended to exercise jurisdiction only

over the most serious crimes of concern to the international

community as a whole," many advocates of the court do not

want to limit its purview to the core offenses of war

crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.  In fact,