This edition was not distributed in Rome!

In fact, nearly half of the copies of our frist edition of World Concerns were removed from the distribution table by UN officials. The reason given was that Sovereignty International is not accredited by the International Criminal Court Preparatory Committee. Sovereignty International's accreditation to the UN's Climate Change Convention was not honored. Sovereignty International's Vice Chair, Floy Lilley, was admitted only after she was allowed to register as a representative of an organization that was accredited.

In a effort to avoid confiscation of the second edition, Lilley asked the UN officials for the rules governing the distribution of literature to the delegates. She was told that there were no printed or adopted rules. The NGO liaison was the sole authority for deciding what literature could be distributed. Lilley was told that only literature produced by accredited NGO's could be distributed. Moreover, the literature could not criticize the UN, nor could it mention any nation by name in connection with atrocities.

After reading our second edition, published here, it will become obvious why the UN would not allow distribution.

Rome

World

Concerns

July 14, 1998 Published by Sovereignty International Volume 2, No. 3

How Good It Is vs. The Plenty Potents

"No place else offers the chances of this country," says Donato Yannitelli, owner of a Cold Spring, N.Y., wine store that his grandparents, immigrants from Italy, opened in 1933. "I tell everybody, 'Send your kids to Europe,'" says Mr. Yannitelli, who has visited there. "That's the only way they'll understand just how good it is here." [Wall Street Journal, "The New Patriotism" p W5, June 26, 1998]

Indeed, travel does broaden. We become more mindful. We notice that there are no full box cars loaded with Americans trying desperately to smuggle into another country. No boatloads of Americans "risk all" trying to sail to some other borders.

Is America perfect? Of course not. Are Americans fearful? Of course they are. All cultures are fearful of something. Americans have large, esoteric fears about the water we drink, the air we breathe, the food we eat, the land we live on, and the energy we use. However, those big concerns carry little actual risk. Most Americans live longer, more healthy lives. Most Russians do not. Most Rwandans do not.

Is it possible to say where the fundamental difference lies?

It is possible and it is not about "natural resources." And it is nothing that transfer of technology or infusion of IMF aid can create. And it is nothing that an American State Department in some new wave of imperialism ought to be trying to force down any other country's throat.

It simply is. It is that Americans generally know that citizens create government in order that it protect their individual, natural, intrinsic, inalienable rights to life, liberty and property. That social contract is called a constitutional republic. It is Rule by Law, not Rule by Men. For a current example, the U.S. Constitution says how law is to be made. Men tried with a "Line Item Veto" to change the way law is made. The U.S. Supreme Court reminded President Clinton, who said he was "deeply disappointed" by the highest court's ruling, and others recently that such a tactic was NOT constitutional and that they would have to have the consent of the governed to change the Constitution itself if they wished a line item veto. That is Rule by Law. Law that citizens can count upon. Having law that can be trusted to protect them, citizens are free to innovate in enterprising ways to better their circumstances. The pie gets created, not just divided up.

Without Constitutional changes by the consent of the governed, no supra-national court for whatever "noble" cause will be allowed to eviscerate our American right to trial by a jury of our peers, or our due process protections, or any other of the hard won, staunchly defended Bill of Rights.

Globalists' efforts to criminalize most aspects of human endeavor will fail. Their crimes will be void for vagueness. They and their amendment process will be seen to be mere Rule by Arbitrary Men. Laws which are both too numerous and too complicated to grasp are never respected. The governments who try to enforce those arbitrary laws are never respected.

It is a myth that "treaties trump the Constitution." Treaties that embrace concepts that are antithetical to the Constitution's guaranties are null and void upon their face. The United Nations Diplomatic Conference of The Plenty Potents should use the capable tools the members already have to deal with difficult issues on an ad hoc basis.

The Secretary-General of Amnesty International spoke wisely on 16 June when he said, "Suspects and accused must have the right to a fair trial." So, too, did Archbishop Martino when he reflected, "Any structures or rules which could lead to decisions about guilt or innocence that are based upon political rather than judicial considerations have a questionable role in the proposed statute."

The Archbishop could have added that any structures or rules which violate the constitutions of the nation states have questionable roles.

For my money, he could just have proclaimed that the entire statute being proposed by The Plenty Potents is questionable.

Mad rush to catastrophe

With only days to go, and major issues still undecided, there will be a mad rush to reach consensus on something, on anything, just to get an agreement by the deadline. Such an attitude is not only irresponsible, it is downright dangerous and could be catastrophic. A similar situation existed in Kyoto. Delegates worked around the clock on the final night, to produce a document. They succeeded in producing a document, but now, six months after the exercise, many of the delegates to Kyoto are dismayed by the interpretation of what they agreed.

If the delegates assembled in Rome make the same mistake -- agreeing to ambiguous language -- just to get a document -- the inevitable confusion could well destroy the efforts of years of negotiation.

What's worse, is the likelihood that the most ambiguous articles will describe the most important issues. Suppose the term "crimes against humanity" remains undefined because delegates cannot agree before the July 17 deadline. Who, then, will define the term?

The draft document provides for the creation of a "Commission" with the details yet to be worked out. Will this commission decide for all the nations of the world the meaning of the term "crimes against humanity?" Every delegate should shudder at the thought of appointed UN bureaucrats empowered to decide what activity within the sovereign borders of every nation is -- or is not -- a "crime against humanity."

When the UN Peacekeeping force was slaughtered in Somalia, was that a crime against humanity? Who would the ICC Prosecutors arrest? Would it be the leaders of the rag-tag Somalian rebels? Or would it be the UN officer in charge, who sent the soldiers from other nations to their death?

Was not the government-ordered 1989 slaughter of university students in China a "crime against humanity?" Will the ICC Prosecutors arrest the President of China? Will China agree to such an ambiguous term, and leave it up to UN bureaucrats to decide? Will Amnesty International's complaint that President Clinton is responsible for 1.5 million deaths in Iraq be investigated by the ICC Prosecutors? Will the U.S. agree to ambiguities in a document that leaves such an outcome as a possibility?

To leave such monumental ambiguities to be decided in the future by as yet unknown bureaucrats, would surely have catastrophic consequences. Far better for the delegates to realize that the division on so many major issues is far too wide to bridge with the ambiguous gobbledegook that plagues the Kyoto Protocol.

Delegates must be aware of the risk of acting prematurely, and the risk of delay. Most of the work on the ICC has occurred in relative obscurity. Almost no one (outside the UN community) even knew the ICC negotiations were in progress. That is no longer the case. America, and the world, is now aware of the ICC negotiations. Many people do not like what they see happening. There is a very real danger that delay will allow knowledge of the International Criminal Court to spread to the people who will be affected by it. Such knowledge in the hands of free people can negate the product of years of negotiations.

The proponents of the ICC might do well to listen to ordinary citizens instead of the professionals and bureaucrats who have a vested interest in the outcome. After all, it is the ordinary citizens who must pay for the folly, and it is ordinary citizens who will ultimately determine the Court's success or failure.

The essence of justice



In much of the world, justice is whatever the government says it is. So it will be if there is an International Criminal Court. International justice will be whatever the UN's International Criminal Court says it is. Not so in America, nor should it be so anywhere.

In America, where government arises from, and is empowered by the consent of the governed, justice is an essential part of freedom. If the people of the world are ever to know individual freedom, the essence of justice must be applied. The essence of justice does not exist in the draft document before the delegates.

The Bill of Rights attached by amendment to the U.S. Constitution speaks eloquently to the rights that should be enjoyed by all people everywhere. The principles of justice contained in the 5th, 6th and 7th Amendments may be useful to the delegates, and inspire people everywhere to insist that their governments ensure the same principles of justice.



Without these fundamental principles of justice, a verdict by any court is not justice, it is simply punishment. Far too much of the world is simply punished by their government. The negotiating document for the International Criminal Court does not incorporate these fundamental principles. Until it does, its verdicts will not administer justice; it will administer punishment for non-compliance with whatever the UN says is a crime against humanity.

US/UN Debt?

How many times have speakers bemoaned the failure of the United States to pay its UN allocation? To listen to some speakers, one might think that if the U.S. would pay, all the world's problems would simply go away. The reality is that the United States does not owe the United Nations a dime. In fact, it is the United Nations that owes the United States.

The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) has reported that the United States spent more than $6.6 billion dollars on UN Peacekeeping operations between 1992 and 1997. The State Department estimated the cost would be only $1.8 billion. The GAO has reported that the UN has reimbursed only $79.4 million of the excess peacekeeping expenditures. Until the United States is reimbursed, or at the very least, given credit by the UN for its contribution to UN causes, the United States should feel no moral obligation to continuing paying 25% or more of the UN's operating expenses.

The United Nations Erroneous Debt Act of 1997, introduced in the U.S. Congress by Roscoe Bartlett, charges that the United States has handed the UN an improper gift of $4,720,600,000. which more than erases any alleged debt to the UN.

Delegates to the UN's various conferences, including the International Criminal Court, quickly recognize that no UN enterprise can be successful without financial support by the United States. What is not so easily recognized is the fact that America's wealth does not belong to the government. It is wealth that has been created by private citizens, exercising their individual freedom to choose their own profit-making activities, using their own resources, ingenuity, and effort. Private citizens decide, through their elected representatives, just how much of their hard-earned money they are willing to give to the government.

The people who own America's wealth are not impressed by the claims of the UN Association, or the disparaging remarks by some who think America should do more. The people who own America's wealth know that America has paid, and paid, and paid, to the UN. Many are now wondering if it has been worth it, or if it has been a waste.

Freedom Abridged

Freedom is not a reward bestowed by government to those who do the government's bidding, and denied to those who do not. Freedom is a condition bestowed upon every human being at birth, but far too often, stolen by an omnipotent government empowered by military might rather than by the consent of the governed. Far too much of the world has never experienced freedom. Instead, people have been taught to believe that freedom is, indeed, a gift of government, rather than a gift of the Creator.

That antiquated view of freedom is revealed quite clearly in an early document produced by the United Nations, called the Covenant on Human Rights. Article 14 says:

Compare the UN's idea of free speech to the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment:

The United Nations believes that speech can, and should, be regulated. Freedom of speech, as defined by a government empowered by the governed, recognizes no governmental authority high enough to abridge, restrict, or penalize speech. The UN, indeed, the International Criminal Court "speech police" are not reluctant to restrict and penalize free speech. The authority cited for preventing the distribution of literature is the "law" laid down by those in charge of the meeting.

What a better world it would be if everyone were free to speak his or her opinion without fear of reprisals from their government. Sure, there would be disagreements and heated debates. But the resolution of those disagreements would represent real compromise and voluntary resolution rather than the forced consensus extracted from a group of individuals selected because of an expressed predisposition to accept the predetermined outcome.

Who among the speakers in Rome has stood to say "I oppose the creation of an International Criminal Court?" Could it be that the opponents were not invited? The non- delegates who spent their own money to come to Rome to urge the delegates to reconsider the dangers inherent in any version of an International Criminal Court were instantly restricted by the exercise of the attitude expressed in Article 14 of the UN Covenant on Human Rights.

Neither the United Nations, nor any agency of the United Nations, should ever have the authority to restrict individual freedoms endowed by the Creator. Restrictions on those freedoms should arise only from the consent of the governed, through a national government created to protect those freedoms. Other definitions of freedom, such as that expressed by the UN document, reflect a political immaturity that still holds millions of human beings hostage. An International Criminal Court will only add to the accumulating power of a World Government that sees freedom as a reward to be given -- or denied -- to people, according to the whims of unaccountable bureaucrats.