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The issue of the unevenness of justice has also been

raised in the Yugoslavia tribunal where convicted war crimi-

nal Dusko Tadic received the same sentence for his role in

the brutal murder of four people--life imprisonment--that

Rudolf Hess received for his role in the Nazi Holocaust.

Lost Rights?

Looking at the Yugoslavia tribunal as a model of what

to expect from the ICC--and, where it is specific, the ICC

draft statute itself--it appears that many of the legal

safeguards Americans enjoy under the Bill of Rights, partic-

ularly Fifth and Sixth Amendment protections, would be

unavailable if Americans were brought before the Interna-

tional Criminal Court.  There are numerous examples of such

potential deprivations.

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states:

"No person shall . . . be compelled in any criminal case to

be a witness against himself."  The Yugoslavia tribunal

recognizes no such right.  The court can call on the accused

to provide evidence against himself or herself, and if the

accused refuses, the court can interpret that as evidence of

guilt.

The Fifth Amendment also states: "No person shall . . .

be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due

process of law."  One of the rights embodied in the concept

of "due process" is that to clear notice beforehand that

certain acts are unlawful.51  Laws that are unclear or

otherwise ambiguous violate the due process clause and are

therefore "void for vagueness."  In Jordan v. De George

(1951), the Supreme Court explained its reasoning this way:

The essential purpose of the "void for vagueness"

doctrine is to warn individuals of the criminal

consequences of their conduct.  This Court has

repeatedly stated that criminal statutes which

fail to give due notice that an act has been made

criminal before it is done are unconstitutional

deprivations of due process of law.52

Under the ICC draft statute, there is no such right because

many of the noncore crimes being proposed in it are not

settled as matters of international law.  Nevertheless,

prosecutions of such crimes will be authorized.