The document is an article critique that analyzes the US's policies toward the International Criminal Court and how it has impacted the ICC's ability to prevent genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The author identifies four strategies used by the US to undermine the ICC: 1) Exempting US citizens from ICC prosecution during UN operations. 2) Pressuring countries to sign treaties exempting US citizens from ICC jurisdiction. 3) Withdrawing aid from countries that join the ICC. 4) Delaying ICC referrals of crimes from the UN Security Council. The author argues these policies have made it more difficult for the ICC to achieve universal jurisdiction and enforce international law.

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Article Critique on Robert C. Johansen:
The Impact of U.S Policy toward the International Criminal Court on the Prevention of
Genocide, War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity
(Johansen, Robert C. "The Impact of U.S Policy toward the International Criminal Court on the
Prevention of Genocide, War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity." The Johns Hopkins
University Press 28.2 (2006): 301-31. )
By
Tracy Vertus
Dr. George Cvejanovich
International Relations POS 325
Barry University
April 28, 2015

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In the article, “The Impact of U.S Policy toward the International Criminal Court on the
Prevention of Genocide, War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity”, the author presents his
arguments on how the U.S through its refusal to join the International Criminal Court and its
policies have impacted international law enforcement (Johansen 303). The author explores the
reasoning behind the U.S strategies for not joining the ICC by analyzing the consequence and
true nature of each of the four strategies toward the International Court. He divides his argument
into two main sections: One that examines the impact of the U.S policy and the other focuses
more on evaluating the impact of those policies on the International Criminal Court. The main
thesis Johansen is looking to prove is that the U.S in its policies is making it more difficult for
the ICC to enforce laws against genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
In the first section, the author identifies the four company of the U.S diplomatic strategy
of undermining the International Court. With the first one being, holding UN peacekeeping and
UN authorized enforcement operations hostage to the US demand that all US citizens be
exempted from any court effort to enforce international humanitarian law during any operations,
the author pinpoints different events in which the US promised not to undermine the court but
ended up doing so (Johansen 305). Secondly, he discusses the US strategy of pressing all other
countries throughout the world to sign bilateral treaties with them to exempt all US citizens or
others employed by the US government from the court’s enforcement of international human
rights law (Johansen 305). Next, he explains another U.S strategy which calls for withdrawing
US security assistance and humanitarian development aid from selected countries that have
become parties to the court (Johansen 305). Lastly, he discusses their strategy of holding victims
of rape, genocide, war crimes and other crimes against humanity hostage to US insistence on

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exempting the United States from international law enforcement on such crimes (Johansen 305).
Continuing into the second section, the author evaluates each strategy by showing how “U.S
hostility toward the court and toward international judicial enforcement of humanitarian law on
US citizens has shaped US policies” (Johansen 323). The author goes into details on how the
different components of the US strategy have affected the International Criminal Court
After reading through and analyzing Johansen’s argument in more depth, I will critique
the article’s method of approaching the issue and the point of view. I will be relating some of the
author’s arguments to the in class discussions as well as the different approaches presented in the
book Taking Sides.
In the article, after analyzing the main questions of discussion which he vaguely mention
as “the real intentions of the US officials in their strategy toward court, and impact of the US
policies on international law enforcement”, the author began to explain how the Bush
administration’s policies affected the court’s effectiveness. For example, he states “immediately
after promising not to work against the court, the Bush administration and congress made law
and developed policies that not only prevented US cooperation with the court but aggressively
undermined the court and aimed to destroy its legitimacy” (Johansen 304). In arguing against
this first method used for their strategy, the author exemplify how US policy affected the
effectiveness of the ICC. He mentions an event in 2002 when the United States vetoed the UN
resolution to extend the peacekeeping mission in Bosnia because it failed to guarantee US
participants immunity from the Court (Johansen 306). To show how the US doesn’t fully
cooperate with the court, the author explains. “Under enormous pressure, the security council
agreed not to prosecute for one year any UN peacekeepers” (Johansen 306). The author proceeds
to showing different examples of how US proposals to the ICC not only were to exempt citizens

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from abiding to the rules but to assault the court and its effectiveness. In this section, the author
is also showing how powerful the US is although they are not part of the ICC. He mentions a
situation in which the US withdrew nine of its UN peacekeepers from a mission after the
Security Council’s refusal to renew an exemption for its members. In his argument for the
second component of the US strategy, he discusses the Bush Administration campaign to press
governments around the world to sign bilateral treaties (Johansen 311). The United States
through this method would be able to protect anyone in the world from any ICC investigation or
prosecution (Johansen 311). In this argument, the author concluded that this strategy not only
violated the Rome status but also violated the Genocide convention. Through those immunity
agreements that the US demanded, the court will not be able to prosecute anyone under those
signed agreements even those accused of abusing the international human rights law. In the next
section which is a prolonged discussion to the previous section, he details out the consequences
faced by the other states that do not sign those immunity treaties. In order to pressure the state,
the American Service member’s protection act laid out the basis for a new campaign to punish
those states. This new campaign as stated in the article, “prohibits military assistance to countries
that have ratified the Rome Statute unless they sign an agreement to exempt US Citizens and
employees from court procedures” (Johansen 314). In this section, the author takes into
consideration the opinions of human rights organizations of the US strategy to punish countries
for following the law. The threat of cutting down on foreign assistance aid was those
organizations main concern. The author lists out the many problems that different countries will
phase following this new “legislation that threatened to cut millions of dollars in aid” (Johansen
317). The last component of discussion is the US delaying the Security Council’s referral of
crimes to the court. In this section, the author use the events in the Darfur region of Sudan to

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exemplify the US strategy of avoiding the ICC to prosecute the crimes committed. He states,
“US reluctance in 2005 to use the ICC to prosecute crimes committed in Sudan further clarifies
US priorities” (Johansen 320).
In the second section in which the author spends more time in evaluating each
components of the strategy, he intends on showing the response of the international community
to US policies and in particular the European countries support for the court’s law enforcement.
He discusses the different tactics used by the United States in their efforts to reshape the ICC’s
constitution through their own policies. One of the first thing he argues in this section is the fact
that the US policies made it difficult for the court to enforce any rules against genocides, war
crimes and crimes against humanity. The main support to this argument is the simple notion of
the US demanding for “special treatments” for his citizens or employees. He mentions that the
“US refusal and reluctance to cooperate made it even harder for the court to achieve universal
jurisdiction” (Johansen 324). In this section of the article, he poses the question whether or not
the US lack of respect for law enforcement was intentional. “The laws over which court
enforcement has been contested are laws prohibiting actions such as mass murder, mass rape,
and murder of innocent lives and crimes so egregious that even the United States itself is bound
to obey the laws prohibiting them (Johansen 328). In his second argument, the author focuses
more on what could be done in the future to help make the court more effective. Here, the author
is acknowledging some counter tendencies to the issue. He states, “The security council has
confirmed four politico-legal realities that should inform future strategies to increase compliance
with human rights law” (Johansen 328). First and most importantly is, “the governments of many
members of the international community have internalized the norm that the international
community has the right to stop genocide, war crime and crime against humanity through

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international legal processes that hold individual accountable to the law (Johansen 328). The
International Criminal Court should by all means abide by the norms and regulations that were
set. No one should be allowed to ask for any form of “special treatments” for their officials or
employees. A second major politico-legal reality is that “US has not accepted the norm that
international community has the right to enforce its laws on not only certain citizens but on
citizen of the United States as well” (Johansen 329). The United States should not only want
citizen of other countries to be prosecuted. He exemplify this reality through the Sudan situation
stating, “The United Stated did not hesitate to enforce the law on the Sudanese” (Johansen 329).
Thirdly, he mentions “the denial to others of exemptions that the United States claims for itself
betrays such a glaring denial of reciprocity that other governments and humanitarian
organizations would continue to question the duration of this double standard” (Johansen 329).
Here, he is addressing the issue of trading off council referral in exchange for the exemption of
US officials. This issue has played a major role in the negative impact to the ICC. In the fourth
reality proposed, he states “international laws against genocide, war crimes and crimes against
humanity when backed by human rights organizations, the European Union, other progressive
governments and UN agencies are politically powerful” (Johansen 329). When all those major
forces come together, their influence will be much greater than the US influence on its own.
“The battle between the neoconservative agenda in the United States and the ICC is far from
over and how the battle will evolve depend on many actors, domestic and international”
(Johansen 330).
Lastly, the next and final section of the article considers US citizens as part of the
solution to the issue. Though the author is trying to convey that the United States has been the
main reason why the international community has not been efficient, he mentions that “the day

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will likely come when the United States will wish it has taken the rule of law path” (Johansen
331). Here, the author is taking into consideration the gains and losses in the international
community’s ability to enforce laws on genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. He in
fact believes that the strong resilience and support shown for the norms by some countries is far
greater than the United States opposition to the court. The author concludes with the thought that
the effectiveness of the International Criminal Court depends solely on the impact of the
opposition and the support of other major powers.
Although, Johansen made some strong arguments and gave well-supported facts to prove
his points, I would argue that there are quite few critiques that could be made. First, as we
learned in class discussions, The International Criminal Court is that the author focuses most of
his argument on all the reasons why the US refusal is not wise but no discussion of the court’s
efficacy or its performance ever since its establishment. In class lecture, we mentioned that the
court has only opened four cases ever since its establishment which is not that good of a number
for such establishment operating at an international level. Another critique will be more of a
suggestion. Since this article was written a few years back, the author could look into writing a
second part to his argument updating the current relation that the United States has formed with
the court. Seeing that most of the article focuses on the Bush administration’s policies, I will
suggest looking at the issue from the current administration point of view.
Johansen’s article even with the many critiques that may arise relates to the previous in
class discussions on human rights as well as the International Criminal Court. When discussing
human rights, Johansen views it as an issue for the US to demand immunity for its officials as a
way to protect them for being prosecuted for crimes committed against innocent lives. He also
discussed a great deal about the humanitarian organizations view on this issue. In class, we

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discussed that human rights consists of absolute national rights that every human being is
subjected to and they are: life, liberty and property. We mentioned that property and liberty are
connected with each other in the sense that “whatever I do with my labor is my decision and if
not then I don’t have liberty. This affirms the idea that the whole argument regarding the
International Criminal Court does greatly affect human rights.
The author’s idea can also be seen in the book “Taking Sides” by John Rourke. In issue
15, there are two debates over whether or not the U.S refusal to join the International Criminal
Court is a wise one. In support with Johansen’s ideas, Jonathan Fanton, the writer of the section
that argues the U.S refusal to join the ICC is not wise, argues that “the ICC is arguably the most
important new international institution since the founding of the United Nations itself and it is
destined to have a lasting impact on how justice and human rights are defined and enforced”
(Fantom 266). This supports the idea that the U.S has nothing to fear for by joining the court
since it seeks to protect nations all over the world and not harm them.

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Works Cited
Fanton, Jonathan F. “Issue 15: Is US Refusal To Join The International Criminal
Court a Wise One.” Taking Sides. By John Rourke. 16th
Ed.
New York: McGraw-Hill, 2014. 246-267. Print
Johansen, Robert C. "The Impact of U.S Policy toward the International Criminal Court on the
Prevention of Genocide, War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity." The Johns
Hopkins University Press 28.2 (2006): 301-31