Human rights groups hail the International Criminal Court (ICC) as world justice's biggest step since an international military tribunal in Nuremberg tried Nazi leaders after World War II.

"The current leadership in the United States seems to have forgotten the lessons we tried to teach the rest of the world,"

After some forty million people had been killed in World War II, the victorious powers, led by the United States, agreed upon new rules "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war." The use of armed force was specifically outlawed, except in self-defense against an armed attack, or when mandated by the Security Council. These Charter provisions became, and remain, international law binding on all nations. We owe it to the memory of the dead to honor these commitments to peace. -- Benjamin B. Ferencz