Cato Institute
Policy Analysis
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there has been a tendency on the part of advocates of the
ICC to try to transfer human rights violations and viola-
tions of other international prohibitions to the domain of
the court.
Efforts to Expand the ICC's Purview
For example, Amnesty International, a nongovernmental
organization supporting the establishment of the ICC, says
not only that the court should handle war crimes, crimes
against humanity, and genocide but that the "perpetrators of
human rights violations must be brought to justice" there as
well.17  Embracing that view, the ICC draft statute contains
wording that would elevate unlawful imprisonment and politi-
cal incarceration to the status of international crimes.
Although those activities are deplorable, including them in
the final ICC statute will establish the precedent that the
international court exercises "complementary" jurisdiction
not only over war crimes, crimes against humanity, and
genocide but over matters of domestic law enforcement and
internal security as well.
A number of countries also want to have the crime of
"aggression" included in the final ICC statute.  For in-
stance, Germany's representative to the Preparatory Commit-
tee for the Establishment of an International Criminal
Court, Rolf Welberts, says that his delegation is encouraged
by the broad support for its initiative to include the crime
of "aggression" in the future court's statute and that the
statute would be blatantly incomplete without the inclusion
of that crime.18  Similarly, the Russian Federation's repre-
sentative, Aleksander Zmeevsky, says that his country be-
lieves that the court's jurisdiction should cover acts
threatening the maintenance of international peace and
security and that such crimes include planning, preparing,
initiating, and carrying out a war of aggression.19  Libya
is even arguing that the crime of "aggression" should be
defined to include confiscation of property and establish-
ment of settlements in occupied territories.20  That wording
would have direct implications for the United States, which
continues to freeze Libyan assets, and for Israel, which
continues to build settlements on the West Bank.
According to the proposed wording of Article 5 of the
ICC draft statute, the term "aggression" could also include
such things as the "bombardment by the armed forces of a