Dear President-Elect Obama,

Congratulations on the resounding victory which your campaign achieved last night. Your acceptance speech was a transforming moment for our country that conveyed the abiding desire of the citizens of the United States to return to "the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope."

Perhaps one of the best ways that you can demonstrate to the world community that the "new dawn of American leadership is at hand" would be for one of the first acts of your administration to be the re-entry of the United States into the International Criminal Court.

Recall that at the end of his administration, President Clinton had this to say upon signing the Treaty on the International Criminal Court:

The United States has a long history of commitment to the principle of accountability, from our involvement in the Nuremberg tribunals that brought Nazi war criminals to justice to our leadership in the effort to establish the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Our action today sustains that tradition of moral leadership.

Re-entry into the court would demonstrate that the United States is reasserting its moral leadership.

This move is necessary because one of the first actions of George W. Bush upon taking office was to begin to undermine the ICC Treaty. As the New York Times reported in July of 2001 (well before 9/11):

Under the Clinton administration, the United States signed the treaty last Dec. 31, the last possible day to sign without ratifying at the same time. The Bush administration has vowed never to send the treaty to the Senate for ratification, and has asked the United Nations for legal advice on how to withdraw its signature.

Note that in his November 1 column entitled "Rejoin the World", Nicholas Kristof included rejoining the ICC as a part of his prescription.

In your speech, you vowed to listen to the American people. We also were listening to you. We gathered all across the country to celebrate this victory for change and wanted to get as close as possible to the moment:

victory speech

Please take this important step in signaling to the world that the United States abides by the precepts of international justice.