•  Sam Iannarino is a second year night student and Editor-At-Large for the Federalists' Paper.

    The current Administration has struggled to define and develop a cogent foreign policy since President Clinton took office in 1993. The Administration has been repeatedly embarrassed by its own ineptness in the handling crises in Somalia, Yugoslavia, China, Iran, and Iraq-which at the time of this writing has refused to comply with inspections by the United Nations that Team Clinton has threatened would cause a unilateral United States military response.

    However, in the rare occurrence of a foreign-policy victory the Clinton Administration suffers defeat and deep humiliation. In June and July of 1998, delegates from 160 nations assembled in Rome to debate and vote on a treaty establishing an international criminal court. The court, it is said, would be used to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and aggression-the last of which received an affirmative vote without ever having been defined. Since taking office, President Clinton has repeatedly called for, and indeed, worked towards this agreement. In an irony befitting, the United States was one of 7 of 148 nations to vote against the treaty that now awaits ratification by 60 nations in order to take effect. It is no surprise that a United Nations monstrosity would grow beyond our control and prevent the United States from negotiating terms that would have allowed an affirmative vote. Our rejection was inevitable-even for the Clinton Administration and its seeming disdain for national sovereignty-as the conferees voted to decorticate the international procedures that have protected the United States when conflict with the United Nations. For example, the United States argued for something comparable to a permanent Security Council with the ability to have a single member halt a prosecution.

    Our fear was-and is-that a prosecutor of the court would be able to bring American soldiers before the court on trumped up political charges. But the treaty passed, causing The New York Times to report on July 17, 1998, that "The United States is perturbed that even though it did not agree to the treaty, there are circumstances in which American Soldiers can be prosecuted." The sovereignty-busting hurdles for imposing jurisdiction on the United States include joining the court or participation-even on an ad-hoc basis (preventing us from participating in a world effort to thwart the threat of Saddam Hussein without opening ourselves up to its command). Article VIII of the treaty lists the offenses over which the court will have jurisdiction, including: "Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects that are not military objectives." Which brings to mind a number of scenarios: Does Hanoi Harbor fit this description? How about Muammar al-Qaddafi's palace in Libya? More recently, consider the baby-milk factory in Iraq we destroyed in Desert Storm and the pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in the Sudan. The Sudanese government allowed all international reporters to scour for evidence of weapons production (as of this writing they have turned up no evidence). Does this allow the prosecution of President Clinton? As the world's strongest nation, we have enjoyed the autonomy to take unilateral actions like the bombing of the plant and other suspected terrorist sites. However, the United Nations' International Criminal Court may someday have the final word.

    Many doubt the Court's ability to investigate or prosecute citizens or soldiers of the United States without its consent. It may surprise you to know the United States is currently under investigation. In fall of 1997, the United Nations commissioned Bacre Waly Ndiaye of Senegal to investigate capital punishment in the United States. Mr. Ndiaye has determined the United States uses the death penalty in a racist manner. When told that Americans support the death penalty, Ndiaye compares the death penalty to a lynch-mob-popular, but not acceptable in civilized nations. (Human Rights, Summer 1998 or See www.un.org/rights) As the court has already outlined and defined its jurisdiction within the borders of nations, we may someday have United Nations investigators interfering with our judicial process. If there is any doubt the troubling nature of an International Criminal Court and The United Nations increasing jurisdiction over our sovereignty, consider these final facts: The court will have the authority to prosecute anywhere in the world and imprison people in prisons throughout the world (without notification to family members). Moreover, there is no mechanism for a trial by a jury of your peers, a right we have guaranteed by our Constitution and one of our primary complaints against King George. Our Declaration of Independence reads: "[King George and Britain] subject us to Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation... Depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury...[and] transporting us beyond our seas to be tried for pretend offenses." The treaty ensures our facing all of these complaints at some time in our future.

    Allowing a United States citizen to be tried for offenses, real or imagined, without the protection of the United States Constitution is unconscionable. The United States Establishment has been ensorcelled by the Collectivist/Globalist spell for 50 years. The United Nations has created a monster with the potential to threaten our sovereignty and destroy that which we hold dear. The United States should use every weapon in its diplomatic arsenal to combat and defeat this pernicious abomination of "justice" now.