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ing that there is a "reasonable basis" for investigating.

In short, an international consensus is building up against

Washington's vague formula for a Security Council veto.

Nevertheless, the Clinton administration has already

put its political eggs in the ICC basket, endorsing the idea

many times.  In an October 1995 speech at the University of

Connecticut, for example, President Clinton said, "A signal

will come across even more loudly and clearly if nations all

around the world who value freedom and tolerance establish a

permanent international court to prosecute, with the support

of the United Nations Security Council, serious violations

of humanitarian law."70  And more recently, in a February

1998 speech before the University of Oklahoma College of

Law, David J. Scheffer, the U.S. ambassador at large for war

crimes issues, stated, "President Clinton is determined to

see established, by the end of this century, a permanent

international criminal court that will bring to justice

future perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity and

war crimes."71

In short, the Clinton administration is wary, and at

the same time supportive, of establishing the ICC.  That

"split personality" on the ICC has once again put the admin-

istration in the position of negotiating a treaty it proba-

bly cannot endorse--much less get ratified by the U.S.

Senate.  Indeed, as Yale University law professor Ruth

Wedgwood points out,

The United States has a penchant these days for

joining international negotiations that spin out

of control: We went to Kyoto to talk about climate

change and discovered we couldn't sign the treaty.

We went to Ottawa to talk about land mines and

found our military problems ignored by other

states. . . . We may be the "indispensable coun-

try," as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright

likes to say.  But we often set ourselves up as

Alamo holdouts, criticized as the indispensable

country with indefensible positions.72

More curious is how the Clinton administration backed

itself into its current policy corner.  The administration

did not look to the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution

as its starting point in negotiating the ICC.  Instead, it

accepted from the beginning the premise of the UN's Interna-

tional Law Commission that an American citizen's constitu-