The Pentagon is rejecting findings of the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague who concluded that members of the U.S. military may have committed war crimes in their treatment and questioning of detainees in Afghanistan between 2003-14.
The U.S. says the investigation of the U.S. personnel in Afghanistan is neither warranted nor appropriate, because the U.S. is not a party to the applicable statute and therefore has never consented to the ICC jurisdiction.
“Members of U.S. armed forces appear to have subjected at least 61 detained persons to torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity on the territory of Afghanistan between 1 May 2003 and 31 December 2014,” according to the report issued late Monday.
But international legal experts say the ICC would have jurisdiction only if it could show the U.S. was unwilling to investigate or unable to prosecute war crimes.
“We’ve got a system, and it works. We hold people accountable, and we have a proven track record of doing that when they screw up,” said Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman.
“We have a robust system, both nationally within our criminal justice system, and within the U.S. military with our Uniform Code of Military Justice to be able to investigate and hold accountable our people,” Davis said. “And those standards more than meet international standards.”
Stephen Rapp, a former ambassador at large for war crimes issues in the Obama administration, told the Associated Press he considers it “highly, highly unlikely” an American will be prosecuted at the world’s first international court with global reach.
The ICC’s prosecutors have not yet decided whether to open a full-scale investigation in Afghanistan, which is a step that could lead to war crimes charges.
