International Criminal Court complaint filed against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Tenet, Rice and Gonzales
Request for international arrest warrants
6 February 2010
A leading US professor of law has filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court prosecutor against former US President George W. Bush and a number of his senior lieutenants alleging crimes against humanity for their policy and practice of “extraordinary rendition” and requesting that the ICC prosecutor obtain international arrest warrants against Mr Bush and his co-accused.
Professor Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign, USA, has filed a complaint with the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague against US citizens George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice and Alberto Gonzales (the “Accused”) for their criminal policy and practice of “extraordinary rendition” perpetrated upon about 100 human beings.
“Extraordinary rendition” is a euphemism for the enforced disappearance of persons and their consequent torture. This criminal policy and practice by the Accused constitutes crimes against humanity in violation of the Rome Statute establishing the ICC.
The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute. Nevertheless, the Accused have ordered and been responsible for the commission of actions considered as crimes under the ICC statute within the respective territories of many ICC member states, including several in Europe. Consequently, the ICC has jurisdiction to prosecute the Accused for their ICC statutory crimes under Rome Statute Article 12(2)(a) that affords the ICC jurisdiction to prosecute for ICC statutory crimes committed in ICC member states.
The complaint requests:
That the ICC prosecutor open an investigation of the Accused on his own accord under Rome Statute article 15(1); and
That the ICC Prosecutor also formally “submit to the [ICC] Pre-Trial Chamber a request for authorization of an investigation” of the Accused under Rome Statute Article 15(3).
For similar reasons, the highest level officials of the Obama administration risk the filing of a follow-up complaint with the ICC if they do not immediately terminate the Accused’s criminal policy and practice of “extraordinary rendition, which the Obama administration has continued to implement.
The complaint concludes with a request that the ICC prosecutor obtain international arrest warrants for the Accused from the ICC in accordance with Rome Statute articles 58(1)(a), 58(1)(b)(i), 58(1)(b)(ii), and 58(1)(b)(iii).
Please contacting the ICC prosecutor by letter, fax or email – contact details below – to demonstrate your support for this complaint.
The Honourable Luis Moreno-Ocampo Office of the Prosecutor International Criminal Court Post Office Box 19519 2500 CM, The Hague The Netherlands Fax No.: 31-70-515-8555 Email: OTP.InformationDesk@icc-cpi.int
A copy of the submission to the ICC prosecutor is below and is also available here.
Francis A. Boyle is a leading American expert in international law. He was responsible for drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, the American implementing legislation for the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. He served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International (1988-92), and represented Bosnia-Hercegovina at the World Court. He served as legal adviser to the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East peace negotiations from 1991 to 1993. In 2007, he delivered the Bertrand Russell Peace Lectures.
Previous Russell Lecturers have included E.P. Thompson, Elena Bonner, Edward Said, Ramsey Clark, Nobel Peace Prize Winner Joseph Rotblat, Johan Galtung and Noam Chomsky.
Professor Boyle teaches international law at the University of Illinois, Champaign and is author of, inter alia, The Future of International Law and American Foreign Policy, Foundations of World Order, The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence, Palestine, Palestinians and International Law, Destroying World Order, Biowarfare and Terrorism and Tackling America’s Toughest Questions. He holds a Doctor of Law Magna Cum Laude as well as a PhD in Political Science, both from Harvard University.
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