Belgium To Scrap Impractical International War Crimes Law

BRUSSELS, July 15, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Belgium officials announced Sunday that they will scrap a controversial war crimes law that closely mirrors that of the International Criminal Court by giving Belgium jurisdiction over war criminals regardless of where their alleged crimes occurred.  Critics of the impractical 1993 law warned that it would interfere with Belgian’s foreign relations and would likely bring on a flurry of politically motivated cases. Their allegations were proven correct by the filing of, among others, futile cases against Bush and Blair over the war in Iraq, and a case against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon   U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had said that the U.S. would be reluctant to send officials to Brussels for meetings at NATO headquarters or to spend money on a new alliance headquarters because of concerns with the law.  The right to launch war crimes cases will now be restricted to Belgian citizens or residents and only cases involving Belgians will be heard.  See Washington Post:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48786-2003Jul12.html