The United States often comes under a lot of criticism for its absence from the International Criminal Court at The Hague. The entire European Union and and 83 other nations, 108 nations in all, have ratified the Rome treaty that established the court. President Clinton signed the agreement, but is was dead-on-arrival for Senate ratification. The Bush administration opposed it, and whatever Obama’s position the Senate will never ratify such a treaty. The opposition to ICC ratification is due to the question of sovereignty. Americans, simply, do not want to hand to an international court the right to prosecute, say, American troops; which is what ICC membership entails.

Regardless of the merit of American opposition, the United States is still quite active in ICC cases. What criticisms of American absence fails to account for is that the United States does aid the ICC, just not as an official partner. American may have not ratified the Rome treaty, but, as The Economist recently wrote, “America has done more than most, financially and diplomatically, to establish and support the tribunals for Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone.”

The American government often pays the prosecutor’s bills and uses its diplomatic clout to employ pressure on nations to hand over wanted criminals, such as in the case of Serbian generals and officials who ordered and took part in the genocide of Bosnian Muslims. And it was American action that brought Charles Taylor of Liberia into The Hague where he currently waits his fate.

And America’s military led a NATO mission to stop the Bosnian genocide and the ethnic cleansing of Kosovars. Stopping genocide is certainly more important than bringing criminals to trial after the fact. But America does both.

So next time you hear someone self-righteously denounce American “arrogance” and “unilateralism,” remember these facts.