American Servicemembers' Protection Act
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In United States law, the American Servicemembers' Protection Act (ASPA) was introduced by Senator Jesse Helms as an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act and passed in August 2002 by the Bush Administration. The stated purpose of the amendment was "to protect United States military personnel and other elected and appointed officials of the United States government against criminal prosecution by an international criminal court to which the United States is not party".
The amendment is intended to weaken the position of the International Criminal Court in The Hague as it allows the US government to save US citizens from extradition to the ICC, and also authorizes "any necessary action", as Helms put it, "to free U.S. soldiers improperly handed over to that Court". This led opponents of the act to dub it The Hague Invasion Act.
Furthermore, it contained prohibitions on the US providing military aid to countries which had ratified the treaty establishing the court; however, there were a number of exceptions to this, including NATO members, "major non-NATO allies" (such as Australia, Israel, Taiwan and a number of other countries), and countries which entered into an agreement with the United States not to hand over US nationals to the Court. ASPA also excluded any military aid that the U.S. President certified to be in the U.S. national interest.
Fiction
The book De Pias van het Pentagon (the Fool of the Pentagon), by the Dutch writer Pieter Nouwen is based on this law. In the book the ICC issues an arrest warrant against the entire American government of Uzziah Push (George W. Bush), because of the unlawful invasion of Iraq. Most countries say they won't arrest any member of the American government, but when Heinz Rogue (Karl Rove) tries to bribe the prince of Freudenfels (Liechtenstein), the prince arrests Rogue and brings him to the ICC. To distract attention from Rogue's bribe attempt, the United States attacks the Netherlands to liberate him.
External links
- HR4775 Title II: ASPA (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c107:7:./temp/~c107wpnHHl:e237332:)
- Helms Introduces Amendment to Protect Servicemen From International Criminal Court (http://www.jochen-birk.de/helms.htm)
- Transcript of Helms's introduction of the amendment (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/R?r107:FLD001:S10042)