President Barack Obama has made no secret of his love affair with international organizations and we-are-the-world handholding. Yet he has not been equally vocal in the defense of America - especially in instances when multinational bodies might transgress the nation's sovereignty and work against our self-interest. These issues are now once again in the spotlight as the new administration provides a wholehearted endorsement of the world's first permanent tribunal, the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
While the court might be able to do much good in bringing to justice some of the world's most notorious human-rights abusers, American support for the tribunal's activities must be counterbalanced with a prudent regard for our unique needs as the world's preeminent power and defender of orthodox western values. Some of the world's most egregarious human-rights violaters have called for indictments against a U.S. president, military leaders, corporate executives, and others under outlandish interpretations of "law."
Mr. Obama and his representatives have now gone further than any other previous administration in empowering the ICC. On Thursday, top Obama administration officials offered support for implementing the war crimes indictment issued in July against Sudanese President Omar Bashir for his role in the genocide and war crimes - crimes that have resulted in the deaths of over 300,000 people and the displacement of 2.5 million. A panel of judges is deliberating whether to issue Mr. Bashir's arrest warrant.
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