Uganda, US Sign Non-Extradition Pact

Jun 13, 2003

UGANDA has finally signed the contentious Article 98 treaty shielding US citizens against prosecution by the recently established UN International Criminal Court (ICC), based at The Hague, Netherlands.

By Alfred Wasike
UGANDA has finally signed the contentious Article 98 treaty shielding US citizens against prosecution by the recently established UN International Criminal Court (ICC), based at The Hague, Netherlands.

The US State Department yesterday confirmed that the deal with Uganda was signed by President Yoweri Museveni and the US Secretary of State Colin Powell, just hours after the UN Security Council renewed a one-year exemption for US peacekeeping troops from ICC prosecution.

Under the agreement, Uganda and the USA will not surrender for trial each other’s citizens to the ICC without the consent of the other. The pact will come into force after both countries have domesticated it into Ugandan and US laws.

The domestication will be confirmed by an exchange of notes between the signatories. The deal will remain in force a year after the date on which one party notifies the other of its intent to terminate the pact.

The ICC is the first permanent war crimes court. It was first conceived at the Nuremberg trials against Nazi leaders 57 years ago. It was created by the Rome Statute on July 17, 1998.

It was inaugurated on March 11, when its first 18 judges were sworn in. The first Chief Prosecutor, Mr. Luis Moreno Ocampo of Argentina, will be sworn in at The Hague on June 16.

The ICC will prosecute war crimes, genocide and systematic human rights abuses in countries where governments are unwilling or unable to do so.

The Uganda-USA pact, the 38th “Article 98” deal Washington has signed with a foreign country, came as Croatia said it would not accept the deal as a US-European rift over the court intensified and a July 1 deadline loomed for nations to sign or lose US military aid.
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