“Threats to the International Criminal Court are much more dangerous this time,” says convenor William Pace of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court. “Under the current Trump administration everything is possible.”

William Pace leads the Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC), an international non-governmental organisation with a membership of over 2,500 organizations worldwide advocating for a fair, effective and independent International Criminal Court (ICC). Although the ICC is supported by as much as 123 member states, including all countries from the European Union, it hasn’t succeeded in getting the United States, Russia, China, India and Israel on board. What’s more: ever since the court began operations in 2002 the United States has taken several measures to make sure no American will ever be brought to justice in The Hague.

In that year US Congress passed the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, nicknamed ‘The Hague Invasion Act’. It mandated, among other things, the use of “all means necessary and appropriate to free US or allied personnel detained by or on behalf of the ICC.” Moreover, in September 2018,US national security adviser John Bolton threatened the ICC with sanctions and to criminally prosecute ICC officials – if the court formally proceeded with opening an investigation into alleged war crimes committed by US military and intelligence staff during the war in Afghanistan or pursued any investigation into Israel or other US allies.

Do you think the Prosecutor of ICC, Fatou Bensouda, finally will get authorisation to open an investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan allegedly committed by American nationals?

I think it will be very difficult for the judges to not approve opening the Afghan investigation. But that’s just an opinion on the basis of all the crimes against humanity and the war crimes that have occurred there since 2002.

It would be extremely unusual if an investigation into the Taliban and ISIS wasn’t agreed to. Whether the extraordinary renditions are included by the judges I can’t say. I expect in the next two or three weeks we’ll see the judgement released.

(Extraordinary renditions are abductions and extrajudicial transfers of persons in Afghanistan to Guantánamo Bay and CIA black sites with the purpose of circumventing US laws on interrogation, detention and torture, EvdB)

Do you think the judges may not authorize Mrs. Bensouda to investigate the American rendition part because of the recent threats from Mr. Bolton?

I don’t know if the judges pay any attention to the threats of Bolton. I hope they don’t. But I do think Mr. Bolton will do whatever he can get away with. He is fanatically against an International Criminal Court, and he was a key architect behind the The Hague Invasion Act back in 2002.

What if crimes allegedly committed by American forces won’t be investigated? What will this do to the support for ICC from African countries? The ICC has been accused by some of them of being a tool of Western imperialism, only punishing leaders from small, weak states while ignoring crimes committed by richer and more powerful states.

I think the credibility of the court is absolutely dependent on the Prosecutor and the judges going after anyone who’s committed crimes where they have jurisdiction, regardless of the region or nationality of the accused. The US, Russia and Israel may not have ratified, still the court has jurisdiction over crimes committed by American, Russian and Israeli nationals if committed on the territory of countries that have ratified ICC’s Rome statue. Since Afghanistan has ratified the Rome treaty, the court has jurisdiction over all crimes committed on Afghan territory, be it by Afghan nationals or American nationals. A lot of the complaints of ICC opponents in Africa ignore such jurisdictional conditions of the Rome statue.

Now that Palestine has ratified, the Prosecutor would be investigating alleged Palestinian crimes just as she would investigate alleged Israeli crimes. Georgians believe Russia is responsible for crimes committed on their territory, and since Georgia is a state party, ICC has jurisdiction over alleged crimes of Russian nationals on Georgian territory.

What if Fatou Bensouda doesn’t get authorisation to open an investigation into crimes allegedly committed by American forces? Could this possibly lead to an exodus of African countries?

There’s much more support for the ICC in Africa than academics and the media have been reporting for years. Two years ago Kenya, Sudan and others were calling for mass withdrawal. Sixteen governments in the African Union openly rejected this effort.

Also, most African governments are very dependent on American assistance and commerce that they are not going to criticize the court for not bringing American leaders or even soldiers to justice. And interestingly the criticism by Africans against the court mostly affected western views about the court. It had very little effect on South American or Asian views.

Do you think ICC feels protected by the Dutch government and European Commission? Is ICC satisfied with the way The Hague and Brussels reacted upon anti-ICC actions and statements that have coming from Washington since 2002?

Even with the current conservative Dutch government and the current Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, praising President Donald Trump, the Dutch government has been extremely strong in supporting the Rome statue and the ICC. The European Union also has been tremendously supportive.

Openly supporting ICC is one thing. Have to your knowledge The Hague and Brussels ever openly disapproved of aggressive statements and actions of the US directed at ICC, starting in 2002 with the The Hague Invasion Act?

Most of the strategy was quiet, I think because the The Hague Invasion Act was adopted so soon after the September 11 attacks on the United States. Most governments were not willing to openly criticize the Bush administration.

After Obama got elected Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maxime Verhagen, went to Washington to persuade the American Congress to get rid of the The Hague Invasion Act, without success.

They did reset a number of provisions of the American Service Members’ Protection Act when it was hurting their military cooperation with countries and military sales, but they didn’t get rid of the The Hague Invasion provision.

The Hague and Brussels support ICC, but they also want to keep good relations with Washington. Are they willing to put their relations with Washington at risk for the protection of ICC?

That’s one of the fundamental questions we’re watching. We’re in the midst of an extraordinarily dangerous retreat from the principals of multilateralism by many leaders and governments around the world. And the most worrisome are some of them in Western Europe.

If the retreat from multilateralism would lead to circumstances where governments would be willing to throw the ICC under the bus to keep on good terms with the United States, that would be a major defeat for the maintenance and advancement of the rule of law in the world.

Should the Dutch and the EU governments take the The Hague Invasion Act serious? In 2002 the American embassy in The Hague declared that the American government couldn’t imagine any circumstances in which the US would decide to take military action against The Netherlands or any other ally.

“The official position of the US Congress remains a dangerous symbolic opposition to international criminal justice. The whole idea of a military invasion of The Netherlands to extricate a US national should be in the fantasy section. But we now have a president that operates in that section all the time. Under the current administration everything is possible.

If allegations were brought against high-level people in the Bush administration or against our soldiers I think that would lead to a very strong reaction. And I think that’s exactly what Bolton would like. He’d like to convince the international community: “You’ve made a mistake establishing ICC and now you need to close it down. If you don’t, we will sanction you until you agree to close it down.”

Under the Bush administration Bolton had people in The White House checking on him, like secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice. Now he has Mr. Trump. I think therefore his threats are much more dangerous this time.

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Interview conducted by Eric van de Beek, freelance journalist, former editor of Dutch leading weekly Elsevier and author of Nepnieuwsexplosie, a recent book about fake news in the Dutch press. Photography by Eric van de Beek. An extensive, Dutch language version of the above interview can be found on Dutch geopolitical magazine Novini.

Vladimir Naydenov, head of the political department of the Russian embassy in The Hague, witnessed how The Netherlands, in a short period of time, became the most Russophobic country in the world.

“The contacts between the Netherlands and Russia were wonderful”, Naydenov recalls. “In the1980’s several delegations of the Dutch parliament visited the Soviet-Union. They made an important contribution to the easing of strained tensions at the end of the Cold War and to the improvement of relations between Russia and The Netherlands. Also The Netherlands has been a political catalyst for the establishment of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987.”

In 2018 Pew Research asked people in 25 countries for their opinion about Russia. The Netherlands emerged as the most Russophobic country. How do you explain this huge shift in public opinion?

“My Dutch interlocutors say: Everything started in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea.’ But that is not the case. The big turnaround came in 2013, when The Netherlands and Russia were to celebrate 400 years of diplomatic ties. In that year there was a succession of incidents, especially around the LGBT campaign.”

Don’t you think that the MH17 disaster in Ukraine changed things for the bad? The Dutch authorities have blamed Russia.

“Of course, but MH17 happened a year later, in 2014. Public opinion about Russia had already changed.”

How are the contacts of your embassy with the press? The American embassy organizes and finances press trips and even pays journalists for writing articles. Your embassy performs no PR activities?

“We can not offer to the press what the press does not want, but the press is always welcome. Our ambassador is a very open man. When asked for an interview, he is always willing, on condition that everything he says will be published, to prevent he is quoted out of context.”

That could perhaps explain why we see the American ambassador much more often in the Dutch media than the Russian ambassador.

“It’s more likely the American ambassador is more often on television because he says what people want to hear in The Netherlands.”

Do you think the Dutch press is biased?

“Journalists usually follow the mainstream, convey the policy of their government. This happens everywhere. Although I must say that there is much more diversity in the Russian media than there is in the Dutch media. To Russian talk shows citizens from many countries are invited, Americans, British, Ukrainians, Polish, Dutch, to express their country’s position on current affairs. On Dutch television you will never see a Russian who propagates Russian views. Apart from one interview with our ambassador and one interview with our minister-counsellor.

Something that astonished me recently was the way in which the Dutch press reported about the annual press conference of President Vladimir Putin, in which he warned about the consequences of the Americanwithdrawal from the INF treaty.

Why didn’t the newspapers report about Putin’s warning? The American withdrawal will directly affect the security of the Netherlands and other European countries. Once again Europe and the US will have to face the question: ‘Where in Europe will America’s missiles for the intermediate-range be installed? ‘For sure the same countries as in the 1980’s will be considered: Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. Dutch politicians now have supported the Americans in their withdrawal from the INF treaty. I still can hardly believe they really did.

Don’t these politicians know how much effort was put into drafting the treaty? And have they completely forgotten about the important role The Netherlands has played in it? Don’t they remember the massive demonstrations in the early 1980’s, against the installment of American nuclear missiles on Dutch territory? The endless discussions in Dutch Parliament? And the subsequent joy in The Netherlands when the news was out that the treaty was signed and ratified?”

What do you think of the interference of the Dutch government with the Russian press? They are financing so-called ‘independent Russian-language media’ in Russia and other former soviet-countries.

“I know that they tried to set up something like this with Poland, but I believe it didn’t work out, at least I haven’t heard anything about it ever since. Anyway, if the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs is overflowing with funding, he’s welcome to spend it. In Russia his media efforts have been left unnoticed.”

Russia is of the opinion that The Netherlands falsely accuses Russia of cyber attacks and fake news. Why do you think The Netherlands is doing this?

“These accusations are part of an international campaign against our country. The Dutch Minister of Defence Bijleveld has said that The Netherlands is at war with Russia. We already have seen some fine examples of how The Netherlands is waging this war. It’s by making false accusations, disseminating propaganda against our country.”

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Interview conducted by Eric van de Beek, freelance journalist, former editor of Dutch leading weekly Elsevier and author of Nepnieuwsexplosie, a recent book about fake news in the Dutch press. Photography by Eric van de Beek. An extensive, Dutch language version of the above interview can be found on Dutch geopolitical magazine Novini.

By Karel Frielink.

For many professionals it is difficult to explain exactly what they are doing. This also applies to diplomats in particular.

Take, for instance, a diplomat who visits a reception of an Ambassador of a country whose President is strongly criticized, for example for violating human rights. “You don’t go to such a reception at all”, is an understandable reaction from an outsider.

But for diplomats it is not so easy. After all, it is they who, in times of great tension, or even war, have to keep communication between countries open. As a rule, they do this behind the scenes. But they can only be effective if they maintain good relations with diplomats from other countries as much as possible. And that also means that they sometimes have to go to a reception, while they would rather stay away.

Outsiders sometimes see this as a lack of principles. However, this is a misunderstanding of one of the most important tasks of a diplomat: maintaining good relationships. What many people do not always realize very well is that there are usually months – and sometimes years – of talks and negotiations at a diplomatic level, which ultimately lead to the political solutions they read about in the newspapers.

These activities, which are often not visible to the outside world, are of great (political) importance. For diplomats, of course, sometimes it is balancing on a tightrope. On the one hand, they represent the interests of the country they represent. This is often a difficult task in itself. In order to achieve results, they must also understand the interests of the other countries involved. And they must recognize cultural and other differences.

Finally, there are many other aspects of importance, including the art of negotiation. A good diplomat can be compared to a professional tightrope walker: mastering the balance is crucial!

About the author: Mr. Karel Frielink is Honorary Consul of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonaire, Curaçao, St. Maarten, St. Eustatius and Saba; Dean of the Consular Corps of Curaçao; Attorney in the Dutch Caribbean. (This contribution is written a titre personnel)