Japan comes in at 105th

As the newest member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Japan had much to celebrate on July 17. Coming in at 105, Japan’s ratification of the ICC treaty makes it the 13th Asian country to join the Court and its top financial contributor, beating Germany with an annual contribution roughly equal to 19% of the ICC’s total budget of $124 million.

But the Japanese government can’t take all the credit. After all, governments rarely join international bodies without strong and consistent pushing at the local level. Enter Japanese civil society, and in particular, the Japanese Network for the ICC. I had a chance to speak with one of the Network’s representatives last November when I attended the fifth annual session of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP), the ICC’s legislative body, in The Hague, Netherlands. I was at Citizens for Global Solutions at the time and one of just a handful of American NGO representatives at the ASP (there were hundreds of NGO delegations from almost every country in the world in attendance). One evening after endless plenary sessions, NGO meetings, and interviews for the U.S. BIA analysis I was working on, I came across my Japanese counterpart.

I was curious—just two months earlier on September 12, the Japanese Foreign Ministry had announced Japan’s intention to join the ICC by July 2007, and I wanted to know if the two challenges facing ratification had been resolved: A Bilateral Immunity Agreement(BIA) with the U.S., and the hefty annual contribution that Japan would make to the Court based on its economy. Given the Foreign Ministry’s public announcement, it seemed that the financial issue was resolved. But the BIA issue was far less clear. (If you’re wondering what a BIA is, here’s the short version: it’s an agreement that the U.S. is requiring all countries to sign so it can immunize itself from the ICC. If countries refuse to sign, they have their aid cut every year. How much aid? Well, let’s just say more than the ICC’s annual budget of $124 million.)

Before I went to The Hague, there had been rumors that a BIA was already in place between the U.S. and Japan. While this was never confirmed, my new colleague did confirm that there was a lot of U.S. pressure to get Japan to sign a BIA.  Flash back to World War II for a minute. Do you remember which side Japan was on? Do you remember which side the U.S. was on? If I recall correctly, after WWII the U.S. was instrumental in providing justice for the millions of victims that had perished. And yet sixty years later, the leader of the Allied Powers is strong-arming an upstanding member of the international community—not to mention a key East Asian ally—to make sure the ICC doesn’t apply to Americans….?

Still, like clockwork, Japan joined the ICC this month—on International Justice Day to be exact. My Japanese colleague told me at the end of our conversation that the Japanese people marvel at the Americans’ insistence on BIAs. I told him that the Americans I knew—the ones who believed in justice and accountability—would never support U.S. exceptionalism.

There is a Japanese proverb that says, “after victory, tighten your helmet chord.” Japanese ICC advocates celebrated their victorious efforts to see their country join the ICC. But they know that more hard work lies ahead. Back here in the U.S. we have our work cut out for us too. The U.S. won’t be joining the ICC anytime soon (too many hyperlink options here, so just take my word for it). But we’re not off the hook: consistent U.S. polling shows that the majority of Americans favor the ICC, but our policymakers don’t represent our views when it comes time to legislate. I for one would at least like to put the helmet on. You too? More soon.