The Right to Trial by Jury – A Principle Worth Keeping

Marion Smith / March 05, 2010

The American Non-Governmental Organizations Coalition for the International Criminal Court (AMICC), a UN-aligned pressure group which advocates for U.S. membership in the International Criminal Court (ICC), has released an “analysis” of our recent paper, “An Inconvenient Founding: America’s Principles Applied to the ICC”. The paper argues that the Rome Statute and ICC are incompatible not only with U.S. constitutional principles but also with the lessons learned from America’s historical experiences involving the British Vice-Admiralty Courts of the 1700s and the International Slave Trade Tribunals of the 1800s. Instead of responding to the central thesis, the AMICC “analysis” myopically quibbles over the extent to which U.S. membership in the Rome Statute violates core American constitutional principles.

That the Rome Statute denies the American “right of trial by jury” is an incontrovertible fact. AMICC rightly notes that “it is not feasible for individuals to be tried by a jury of peers in international tribunals.” We could not have said it better, and this is precisely the problem with international tribunals. (more…)