ICC President Rejects Criticism That Court Targets Africans

VOA - WASHINGTON - As the International Criminal Court faces criticism in the U.S. and on the African continent, Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji, president of the ICC, said he is hopeful relationships can be repaired. 

In an interview with VOA, Eboe-Osuji urged the U.S. government to remember the role it has played in supporting war crimes courts dating back to the post-World War II Nuremberg Tribunal and more recent tribunals in Rwanda and Yugoslavia.

"Lots of Americans support the court and wish us well. And the only thing now is for the government to also pay heed to the role America has played in this sort of endeavor in the past," he told VOA.

The U.S. has never ratified the Rome Statute that created the court in 1998. More recently, President Donald Trump's personal attorney Jay Sekulow went to the headquarters of the ICC along with attorneys from the American Center for Law and Justice, a legal organization advocating for religious freedom and freedom of speech.  Their trip was part of an effort to stop an investigation into allegations that American forces in Afghanistan committed war crimes in 2003 and 2004.

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