On this day in ...... 1998 (10 years ago today), in Italy, at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, delegates to a Conference of Plenipotentiaries voted to adopt the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. As I've written here and here, the statute was approved by an overwhelming margin of 120 to 7, plus a number of abstentions. Despite particularly vocal opposition from the United States, the statute rapidly attained the necessary 60 ratifications, and so entered into force on July 1, 2002. Earlier this week, Suriname became the 107th state party to the ICC treaty. No trial yet has commenced; however, matters are pending with respect to conflicts in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and Sudan. The last matter was made possible when the 3 permanent members of the U.N. Security Council that do not belong to the ICC treaty regime -- not only the United States, but also China and Russia -- refrained
from vetoing the 2005 referral of the matter, which pertains specifically to Sudan's Darfur region.... 1944, napalm was used for the 1st time as a weapon of war. It was dropped by U.S. Army planes onto a fuel depot in St. Lô, France, during World War II. The frequent use of the incendiary chemical in conflicts since then is detailed here. (credit for photo of U.S. riverboat using napalm during Vietnam War)
