Senator Joseph Biden, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, is being urged to follow a vote on the Law of the Sea Treaty with action on the International Criminal Court.

Senator Joseph Biden, Jr., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, not only has a history of unethical behavior, having been exposed as a notorious serial plagiarist, but is committed to putting the interests of other nations above those of the United States. The next few weeks could feature another one of his bizarre performances. Biden's committee is reported to be holding a hearing on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) on September 27.

America's Survival, Inc. (ASI) requested the opportunity to testify about the insidious origins of UNCLOS before Biden's Committee. However, Biden responded with a letter ignoring the request and restating his support of the treaty. ASI sent a follow-up letter to Biden asking for the opportunity to testify. ^[1]

It is apparent in this case that a letter was sent out, under Biden's name, without the Senator knowing or even caring what was in it.  This is not how a Senate Committee should be run. It suggests an effort, undertaken by behind-the-scenes staffers working with the U.S. State Department, to railroad UNCLOS through the Senate without adequate scrutiny and perhaps lay the groundwork for action on the International Criminal Court treaty. ^[2]

Antony Blinken

Biden's Foreign Relations Committee staff director and adviser, Antony Blinken, is a former top Clinton Administration official who married Senator Hillary Clinton's former director of scheduling, Maureen Ryan. ^[3]  He served on Bill Clinton's National Security Council staff from 1994 to 2001, including as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European Affairs. ^[4] He attended high school in Paris, where he received a French Baccalaureate degree, and was selected as a "young leader" by the French American Foundation. ^[5]

Biden's approach to the threat that UNCLOS poses to U.S. sovereignty is reminiscent of what happened after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when the Delaware Senator belittled U.S. military personnel by saying that America risked looking like a "high-tech bully" in the bombing of Afghanistan, where the terrorists were based. He called for a stop to the bombing in Afghanistan after only two weeks and two days and suggested that it was better for American soldiers to go cave to cave looking for the enemy.

Then-House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert called Biden's comments "completely irresponsible," adding that, "The American people expect their representatives and senators to support these operations and to support our men and women in uniform." After losing close to 3,000 fellow citizens to terrorist attacks on 9/11, "the American people want us to bring these terrorists to justice," Hastert said. "They do not want comments that may bring comfort to our enemies."

Biden's 2002 Senate opponent, Ray Clatworthy, responded, "In my four years at the U.S. Naval Academy and my five years flying jets in the United States Marine Corps, we were never advised to lay aside strategic advantage to appease world opinion. Our soldiers are just too important. I will never sacrifice one American life for ‘world opinion.'"

Please contact the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and ask that America's Survival, Inc. be given the opportunity to testify about the origins of UNCLOS.  The Committee on Foreign Relations is located at the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 439, Washington, D.C. 20510-6225. The Majority (Democratic) phone is (202) 224-4651. The Minority (Republican) phone is (202) 224-6797.

Biden has become even more of an embarrassment than he was in 1988, when he stole a political speech from a British politician and was eventually forced from the presidential race.

As recounted by political scientist Larry J. Sabato, Biden delivered, without attribution, passages from a speech by British Labor party leader Neil Kinnock. Sabato said that, "A barrage of subsidiary revelations by the press also contributed to Biden's withdrawal [from the 1988 presidential race]: a serious plagiarism incident involving Biden during his law school years; the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record at a New Hampshire campaign event; and the discovery of other quotations in Biden's speeches pilfered from past Democratic politicians." ^[6]

Michael Harvey's website on college writing explained the aftermath of the Biden/Kinnock plagiarism incident: "It turned out Biden had also borrowed passages from old campaign speeches by Robert Kennedy and had inflated his academic record. But oratory has a long tradition of borrowing and even ‘heavy lifting,' as speechwriters call it, so Biden stayed alive in the presidential race. The last straw, however, came when it turned out that twenty years earlier Biden had received a failing grade in a law school course for plagiarizing a legal article (he'd given a single footnote while lifting five full pages from the article). Biden said he'd been unaware of the appropriate standards for legal briefs, but the public was unimpressed. His campaign collapsed and he withdrew from the race." ^[7]

Biden is listed on the website www.famousplagiarists.com as "a byword for plagiarism. His situation became a classic example of plagiarism for high school teachers and college instructors across the nation lecturing on the evils of unacknowledged source use." ^[8]

Nevertheless, Biden has risen up the liberal ranks in Washington, D.C. to become one of their leading "experts" on foreign policy in the U.S. Senate. He has replaced Senator Claiborne Pell, who carried around a copy of the U.N. Charter, as the most vocal supporter of the world body in Congress. Biden's "expertise" consists of coming up with ways to build up the power of the U.N. at the expense of America's national interests. He once "wrote" an article for the Wall Street Journal under the headline, "How I Learned to Love the New World Order." The April 23, 1992, article declared:

"Why not breathe life into the U.N. Charter? It envisages a permanent commitment of forces, for use by the Security Council."

ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo. The liberal MacArthur Foundation finances efforts to train and educate ICC judges. It is also funding a propaganda campaign in support of the tribunal.

Not only is Biden probably the strongest supporter of the United Nations in the entire Congress today, he and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are on record as having voted to encourage the establishment of an International Criminal Court within the United Nations system.

This is what Biden and Reid supported:

On January 26, 1994, in the 103^rd Congress, 2^nd Session, Senator Jesse Helms introduced Senate Amendment 1254 (to S. 1281) to strike all language in Section 170A relating to support for an International Criminal Court (ICC). The vote to table (or defeat) the Helms motion passed 55-45.  Here is the roll call:

Yeas - 55:  Akaka, Baucus, Biden, Bingaman, Boren, Boxer, Bradley, Breaux, Bryan, Bumpers,  Campbell, Chafee, Conrad, Daschle, DeConcini, Dodd, Dorgan, Exon, Feingold, Feinstein, Glenn, Graham [Bob], Harkin, Hatfield, Inouye, Jeffords, Johnston, Kennedy, Kerrey, Kerry, Kohl, Lautenberg, Leahy, Levin, Lieberman, Mathews,  McConnell, Metzenbaum, Mikulski, Mitchell, Moseley-Braun, Moynihan, Murray, Nunn, Pell, Pryor, Reid, Riegle, Robb, Rockefeller, Sarbanes, Simon, Specter, Wellstone, Wofford.

Nays - 45: Bennett, Bond, Brown, Burns, Byrd, Coats, Cochran, Cohen, Coverdell, Craig, D'Amato, Danforth, Dole, Domenici, Durenberger, Faircloth, Ford, Gorton, Gramm, Grassley, Gregg, Hatch, Heflin, Helms, Hollings, Hutchison, Kassebaum, Kempthorne, Lott, Lugar, Mack,  McCain, Murkowski, Nickles, Packwood, Pressler, Roth, Sasser, Shelby, Simpson, Smith, Stevens, Thurmond, Wallop, Warner.

In terms of current presidential candidates, one pro-U.N. activist reports the following:

So far, Democratic candidates Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson and John Edwards have come out in full support of participation [in the ICC]. Barack Obama gave support for the court in his 2004 Senate campaign, but has not spoken publicly about it in his current campaign. Republican candidate John McCain has stated that it is in the interest of the United States to support the International Criminal Court with its prosecutions of Sudanese war criminals. ^[9]

In fact, Biden and McCain have come out in favor of the ICC, although they say some safeguards may be needed. Indeed, on January 28, 2005, Biden and McCain were reported to have endorsed U.S. membership in the ICC. For his part, "Biden stood in support of the United States inclusion in the ICC," reported the Citizens for Global Solutions (CGS) in a press release. ^[10] CGS is the new name of the World Federalist Association, the pro-world government organization. 

The CGS gave Biden a grade of "A+" in its 2007 Congressional Report Card. It also gave him "extra credit," explaining:

"Senator Joseph Biden [D-DE] earned extra credit for his leadership as Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Biden was an outspoken critic of John Bolton and was instrumental in convincing his fellow Senators to oppose the nomination and filibuster his nomination. Biden also introduced important climate change legislation (S.Res.312) with Senator Lugar and an amendment to remove harmful provisions capping the amount the U.S. can contribute to U.N. peacekeeping efforts." (emphasis added).

Other Senators getting a grade of "A+" included Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Democratic Senators and 2008 presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Please contact the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and ask that America's Survival, Inc. be given the opportunity to testify about the origins of UNCLOS.  The Committee on Foreign Relations is located at the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 439, Washington, D.C. 20510-6225. The Majority (Democratic) phone is (202) 224-4651. The Minority (Republican) phone is (202) 224-6797.

Though cloaked in flowery language about bringing justice to the world, the ICC could subject American citizens to the compulsory jurisdiction of an international tribunal of foreign judges with no respect for our most basic Constitutional rights. Consider:

• Although the Seventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution affirms the right to trial by jury, there will be no such right before the ICC. Instead, foreign judges will decide the fate of Americans.
• During a hearing, Senator Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) asked Professor M. Cherif Bassiouni, the architect of the ICC, if the judges for this entity could come from Communist China, Iran, Syria or the Palestine Liberation Organization, and whether they could judge the actions of the U.S. government or U.S. citizens. "There is no guarantee" this will not happen, he responded. Helms noted that judges for the ICC could also come from Communist North Korea and Cuba -- other member countries of the U.N.
• Under the U.N.-sponsored International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, a forerunner to the ICC, there is no right, as detailed in the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, for the defendant "to be confronted with the witnesses" against him. Instead, the court has adopted a provision known as Rule 75 which can "allow some witnesses to remain anonymous, even to defendants and their lawyers."
• The Sixth Amendment also refers to the right of the accused "to be informed of the nature and the cause of the accusation" against him. However, the U.N.-sponsored Yugoslavia tribunal has issued secret or "non-public" indictments.

State Department Legal Adviser John B. Bellinger III is working behind the scenes with liberal internationalists to promote the International Criminal Court.

In this regard, it is significant that Scott T. Paul, Deputy Director of Government Relations at CGS, has written that State Department Legal Adviser John B. Bellinger III comes out a "big winner" in the Bush Administration campaign to ratify UNCLOS. This is strange praise coming from a member of the world government movement. Paul also reported in a blog:

"I recently heard a story about a meeting between Bellinger and a group of high-level European diplomats that got me really fired up about UNCLOS. Bellinger promised the Europeans that the Bush Administration wanted to cooperate more closely and take a more multilateral approach in its foreign policy. The Europeans responded that so long as the U.S. refuses to join the Law of the Sea - the most common-sense international agreement on the map - they will view these promises with a great deal of skepticism (for me, it'd take more than just UNCLOS to convince me of this supposed change of heart). (emphasis added)." ^[11]

UNCLOS establishes a new international legal regime, including a new international court, to govern activities on, over, and under the world's oceans. The treaty explicitly governs seven-tenths of the world's surface and could easily be interpreted to restrict U.S. military activities. The provisions of the treaty would also permit international rules and regulations governing economic and industrial activities on the remaining land area of the world in order to combat global warming and other perceived pollution dangers. The treaty provides for the taxing of U.S. and other corporations which mine the ocean floor, thereby establishing the first independent source of revenue for the U.N.

Paul and his fellow advocates of world government also know that Bellinger, who was sworn in as the Legal Adviser to the Secretary of State on April 8, 2005, is behind a new Bush Administration policy of cooperating with the International Criminal Court. The American Non-Governmental Organization Coalition for the International Criminal Court (AMICC) reported in 2005 that U.S. antagonism to the ICC was "starting to wane."

Bellinger himself confirmed this, telling the Wall Street Journal in an article published on June 14, 2006, that "we do acknowledge that it [the ICC] has a role to play in the overall system of international justice." ^[12]

However, President Bush had said, during the 2004 presidential campaign, "It's a body based in The Hague where unaccountable judges and prosecutors can pull our troops or diplomats up for trial. I just think trying to be popular, kind of, in the global sense, if it's not in our best interest, makes no sense."

On June 6 of this year, Bellinger gave a speech saying that while the ICC's "guarantees of due process and fair trial, and its respect for national sovereignty" had fallen "short" of U.S. requirements, "over the past couple of years we have worked hard to demonstrate that we share the main goals and values of the Court." He explained:

"We did not oppose the Security Council's referral of the Darfur situation to the ICC, and have expressed our willingness to consider assisting the ICC Prosecutor's Darfur work should we receive an appropriate request. We supported the use of ICC facilities for the trial of Charles Taylor, which began this week here in The Hague. These steps reflect our desire to find practical ways to work with ICC supporters to advance our shared goals of promoting international criminal justice. We believe it important that ICC supporters take a similarly practical approach in working with us on these issues, one that reflects respect for our decision not to become a party to the Rome Statute. It is in our common interest to find a modus vivendi on the ICC based on mutual respect for the positions of both sides." ^[13] (emphasis added).

This speech made headlines, with the Washington Post reporting that Bellinger's remarks were "a bid to deflect world criticism of America's approach to international law…" The Post reported that, "…court officials and human rights activists have welcomed the remarks as evidence of a new U.S. willingness to engage in practical collaboration with the ICC. Court officials said they will be more confident making requests that they now know will be considered." ^[14]

Bellinger's comments also suggested that while the U.S. didn't want the ICC to go after its own citizens, it didn't mind the tribunal targeting people from other countries. This approach smacked of hypocrisy. What's more, Bellinger never answered the question of where international courts and tribunals got their authority. Regarding the so-called ad hoc tribunals on Yugoslavia and Rwanda, never established by treaty, C. Douglas Lummis, a teacher of political philosophy, asked, "Where does the U.N. get the power to prosecute individuals?" He points out, for example, that the Yugoslavia tribunal "was established by Security Council resolutions, but that answers nothing. Where does the Security Council get such power? The legal fiction is that the power comes from Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter. Chapter VII authorizes the U.N. to deploy the armed forces of member states in peacekeeping operations. Stretch the words as you will, you cannot make them say that the U.N. has the power to put people in jail on criminal charges."

Nevertheless, the pressure is mounting for the U.S. to get further entangled in international courts and tribunals by accepting the International Criminal Court.

On August 31, the pressure intensified when the Harvard International Review published an article, "The End of Exceptionalism in War Crimes: The International Criminal Court and America's Credibility in the World," noting with pleasure that:

"No senior Bush administration official has been on the warpath against the ICC since John Bolton lost his ambassadorial post at the United Nations in late 2006."

The authors were David Scheffer, who served as the U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues in the Clinton Administration, and Richard Cooper and Juliette Voinov Kohler. After noting that recent developments in the United States "have opened the door for a more balanced and constructive understanding of the ICC ," the authors predicted that:

"One key event should compel Washington to act decisively over the next two years, perhaps even leading to its embrace of the Rome Statute in spring 2009. The Rome Statute requires the convening of a review conference seven years after the establishment of the ICC—that date arrives on July 1, 2009. The Assembly of States Parties of the ICC is already well into the planning for a 2009 or 2010 review conference, which will open up the Rome Statute for possible amendment. If the United States is a state party to the ICC by the time the conference convenes, then it can exert considerable influence on the outcome of the conference with its own proposals and exercise of diplomatic power in the negotiations." ^[15]

The date of spring 2009 lies, of course, in the next administration. But the authors do not suggest acceptance of the ICC is dependent on a liberal Democrat occupying the White House. Rather, they urge Senate action, saying that:

 "The Senate will need to debate the issue in the spring of 2009 with a timely vote."

The authors say changes in U.S. policy toward the ICC were reflected in a 2006 report by the Henry L. Stimson Center examining U.S. military attitudes toward the Court. They described the Stimson project as "a path-breaking effort" that produced a "rough consensus" that "the United States needed to move from a studied distance [from the ICC] to constructive engagement, and that Washington should consider cooperation on a case by case basis."

This report, "On Trial: The US Military and the International Criminal Court," was clearly an attempt to soften U.S. military opposition to the ICC. It was funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, one of the nation's largest private philanthropic foundations with assets of over $6 billion and grants and program-related investments totaling approximately $225 million annually. ^[16] A search of the foundation's website disclosed $125,000 to the Stimson Center in support of this project, entitled, "U.S. Military Perspectives on the International Criminal Court: Identifying Key Issues and Actors," in 2004

Overall, the foundation has declared its "support for a strong International Criminal Court" and says that it has "provided more than $216 million and more than 700 grants" in the area of international justice, including support for the ICC. ^[17]

The Stimson Center held sessions on January 5 and January 6, 2006, attempting to create a new policy of cooperating with the ICC. However, the names and affiliations of the participants, said to be "experts from the military, academic and legal communities," were not identified on the website. ^[18]

Victoria K. Holt, the co-author of the report, had served as Legislative Director for Democratic Rep. Thomas H. Andrews and had been a Senior Policy Advisor at the State Department in the Clinton Administration, focusing on peacekeeping and U.N. issues. She had also served as Executive Director of the Emergency Coalition for US Financial Support of the United Nations, a major component of the pro-U.N. lobby, and from 1994 to 1997 directed the Project on Peacekeeping and the United Nations at the Council for a Livable World Education Fund.

Victoria K. Holt, a former Democratic staffer on Capitol Hill and State Department official in the Clinton Administration, directed a Stimson Center project to soften U.S. military opposition to the International Criminal Court.

Americans have been told that an ICC would be a great leap forward, following in the steps of the Nuremberg military tribunals that prosecuted Nazi and Japanese war criminals after World War II. But those tribunals were staged by victorious military powers and were temporary in nature. The ICC, a permanent court sponsored by the U.N., could intervene against the leading military power in the world today -- the United States -- rather than those countries which are true threats to international peace and security and which have the worst human rights records.

Because the notion of "war crimes" has military significance, it is reasonable to believe the targets could include American soldiers carrying out the orders of the American Commander-in-Chief. But the targets could also include the Commander-in-Chief himself or the Joint Chiefs, depending on whether a particular U.S. military operation happens to be popular with the U.N.

In retrospect, the U.S. bombing of Libya and the U.S. invasions of Grenada, Panama and Iraq might all qualify as violations of "international law" since they were not given advance approval by the U.N. In these kinds of cases, the great fear is that an ICC would be used to prosecute American civilian and military officials for conducting a war in the national interest of the U.S. Indeed, it could be argued that the ICC is designed to inhibit the U.S. from conducting military operations except under the authority of the U.N.

The final Stimson report of Victoria Holt and her co-author, Elisabeth Dallas, predictably argued that the U.S. "needs to engage with the International Criminal Court to protect the interests of its military service members." ^[19] Hence, they urged capitulation to the new international order of international criminal tribunals and courts.

In addition to the Stimson project, the MacArthur Foundation has put millions of dollars into other organizations and campaigns in support of the ICC. They include:

• World Federalist Movement. $1,350,000 in support of general operations (over two years).  (2003). $1,500,000 in support of general operations (over three years). (2005). $150,000 in support of the Responsibility to Protect-Engaging Civil Society project to disseminate and exchange information on the Responsibility to Protect. (2007).
• International Center for Transnational Justice. $2,000,000 in support of the Prosecutions Program: Building a Global System of Justice on the Foundations of the ICC (over three years). (2006). $250,000 to support and develop objective radio reporting on the International Criminal Court in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. (2006) $440,000 in support of activities to strengthen the work of the International Criminal Court (over two years). (2005).

The "Responsibility to Protect" is a radical proposal that came out of the September 2005 U.N. World Summit that dramatically expands the power and authority of the U.N. in global affairs. It gives the U.N. Security Council the power to intervene in the internal affairs of member states when national governments fail to stop human rights violations.

But why is the U.N. qualified to make such a decision when the world body failed to stop a genocide in Rwanda and its peacekeepers have committed human rights violations, including the sexual abuse of women and children? This new U.N. doctrine would seem to justify a U.N. invasion of Communist China, one of the greatest human-rights violators on the planet. But that won't happen because China is on the Security Council and would veto the operation.

The World Summit document also endorsed a strengthening of U.N. military peacekeeping operations and the creation of a standing police force for the world organization. The ICC has already announced that it is receiving the cooperation of Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization, and could use these new U.N. police to apprehend fugitives from international justice, possibly including American soldiers facing dubious "war crimes" charges.

Richard Cooper and Juliette Voinov Kohler, who contributed to the Harvard International Review article urging Senate action on the ICC, have also written about the need for a "police force" and even an "International Marshals Service" to help international tribunals apprehend people. ^[20]

In terms of addition resources for the pro-ICC campaign, the World Federalist Movement is the base of operations for the Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC), which itself reports "major financial contributions" from the MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the European Commission. It identifies additional funding from the George Soros-funded Open Society Institute, Paul and Daisy Soros Foundation, Planethood Foundation, Reebok Foundation, Third Millennium Foundation and the governments of Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. ^[21]

The U.N., which according to its charter is supposed to be funded by member states, receives money directly from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation as well. Direct grants to the U.N. and its agencies include:

• United Nations. $150,000 in support of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change.
• United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). $200,000 to study and learn from the traditional ecological knowledge systems of the indigenous peoples of Northeast India (over three years).  (2005).
• UNESCO. $250,000 to build capacity for designating important marine World Heritage sites in the Insular Caribbean (over two years).  (2004).
• U.N. Environment Program. $200,000 in support of a Training of Trainers Program for Marine Protected Areas managers in the Caribbean (over three years).  (2004).
• United Nations Population Fund. $300,000 in support of advocacy efforts in Europe to promote universal access to reproductive health (over two years). (2006) $250,000 for activities to promote policymakers' use of linkages among population dynamics, reproductive health, and poverty reduction.  (2004). $102,500 in support of follow-up activities in Latin America and the Caribbean on the tenth anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development.  (2003).
• United Nations Office of the Secretary-General.  $250,000 in support of a project to strengthen the capacities of the United Nations system to respond to proliferation dangers. (2006).
• United States Committee for the United Nations Population Fund. $200,000 in support of general operations (over two years).  (2005). $200,000 in support of activities to draw attention to the population and reproductive health concerns during the tenth anniversary review of the Fourth World Conference on Women's Platform for Action.  (2005).

The foundation also made grants directly in support of the ICC. Records show:

• $79,100 in support of educational outreach programs regarding the first prosecutions by the Court. (2006).
• $145,000 in support of a study visit of the judges of the Court to the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences in Siracusa, Italy (over two years). (2006)

Also in support of the ICC, the MacArthur Foundation provided:

• DePaul University School of Law. International Human Rights Law Institute (IHRLI). $140,000 in support of a project to establish a Committee for the International Criminal Court. (2006). $32,400 in support of the International Criminal Court Judicial Capacity Strengthening Program. (2005). $35,000 in support of the work of the United Nations Independent Expert on Human Rights in Afghanistan. (2004). $85,000 in support of participation by the least-developed countries in the Assembly of States to the Rome Statutes of the International Criminal Court. (2004).

The president of the IHRLI is M. Cherif Bassiouni, a Professor of Law at DePaul University who in 1999 was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize "for his work in the field of international criminal justice and for his contribution to the creation of the International Criminal Court." He has received awards from Parliamentarians for Global Action and the United Nations Association. He also received the Special Award of the Council of Europe.

Born in Egypt and described as a moderate Muslim, Bassiouni has written extensively on Islam. He wrote the introduction to the book, Islamic Criminal Law & Procedure(Greenwood Publishing Group, 1988), and authored Introduction to Islam, described as designed "to convey to a non-Muslim audience an understanding of Islam, its history, culture, and contribution to civilization." ^[22]

 He was not only chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Diplomatic Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court but was a prime mover behind the U.N.-sponsored International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. When this tribunal was unveiled, half the judges were from Muslim countries such as Pakistan and Malaysia. Bassiouni was accused of ignoring evidence presented to him of crimes committed by Muslims and others against Christian Serbs.

Bassiouni serves as president of the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences (ISISC), the group that hosted the ICC judges as part of an event underwritten by a MacArthur Foundation grant. The ISICS is described as an organization "with a special focus on Arab and Muslim countries" and "is one of the leading training institutions for legal professionals in the Arab world." It is said to have programs in Iraq and Afghanistan. ^[23]

But his scholarship and legal expertise have been seriously questioned. Bassiouni wrote an April 2, 2006, op-ed in the Chicago Tribune arguing that a Muslim's conversion to Christianity is not a crime punishable by death under Islamic law. Robert Spencer, author of two bestselling books on Islamic Jihad and the director of Jihad Watch, countered that Bassiouni's claim was "in defiance of the clear teaching of every school of Islamic jurisprudence" and that the death penalty for apostasy has "deep roots" within Islamic tradition. ^[24]

Bassiouni's credibility also came under scrutiny when it was revealed that he had been a featured speaker at events organized by the Council on American Islamic Relations, (CAIR), a group alleged to have ties to terrorism. ^[25] Bassiouni spoke at the 2005 annual event of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Chicago as well as CAIR's 2005 national conference, "Islamophobia and Anti-Americanism Causes and Remedies." ^[26]

Finally, another new push for the International Criminal Court came on August 29, 2007, when Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor for the ICC, was joined by two of the three remaining prosecutors of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, Henry King and Whitney Harris, in issuing a declaration calling for an end to the "impunity by perpetrators of crimes of concern to the international community." 

The Washington Post labeled this an "unprecedented gathering" of "international war crimes prosecutors." ^[27] At the event, the paper reported, King "chastised the Bush administration for withholding support from the ICC."

The other signers were Stephen Rapp (Chief Prosecutor, Special Court for Sierra Leone [SCSL]), Hassan Jallow (Prosecutor, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda), Robert Petit (Co-Prosecutor, Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia), David Tolbert (Deputy Prosecutor, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia), David M. Crane (former Chief Prosecutor, SCSL), and Sir Desmond DeSilva (former Chief Prosecutor, SCSL).  

Egyptian-born Muslim M. Cherif Bassiouni is the chief architect of the International Criminal Court. He has appeared at conferences sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a group accused of ties to terrorists. His organization receives funds from the liberal MacArthur Foundation.

The event, The International Humanitarian Law Dialogs, where the declaration was issued, was co-sponsored by the American Society of International Law (ASIL). The other co-sponsors were the Robert H. Jackson Center, Washington University's Whitney R. Harris Institute for Global Legal Studies, and Syracuse University College of Law.

At ASIL's 2005 conference, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared:

I want you to know just how much we at the Department of State and especially our team in the Legal Adviser's Office value your essential work on behalf of law and justice at home and abroad. ^[28]