Particularly troubling to human rights groups was Scheffer's warning that "there are too many governments which would never join this treaty and which, at least in the case of the United States, would have to actively oppose this Court if the principle of universal jurisdiction or some variant of it were embodied in the jurisdiction of the Court".

This response, in effect, means the US is "a democracy telling the world, 'Either you will accept our vision or we will act against you'," said Mona Rishmawi of the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists.

"What does the United States mean precisely by saying it will actively oppose this Court?" asked Richard Dicker, associate counsel for Human Rights Watch. "Will it try to wreck this conference? ... Will it try to persuade other states into not ratifying this statute?"

Some human rights supporters openly dismissed the tepid US acceptance of some compromise on restricting UN Security Council oversight of the ICC, which one US lawyer said that Scheffer's delegation had been proud of crafting. However, after months of expecting major concessions by Washington, the idea that the United States might now accept the 'Singapore compromise' struck many activists as half a loaf at best. "Frankly, I don't think what we saw (Thursday) from the United States was much of a concession at all," Dicker argued. "I don't think the United States has given us anything at this negotiation - this was only inevitable."

William Pace, convenor of the Coalition for an ICC, said he doubted that Washington had moved toward the Singapore compromise because of its principles but rather because it had understood that the majority of states were against its position.

At the same time, Washington's opposition to universal jurisdiction for the Court and its hardline support for states to consent to any ICC jurisdiction over war crimes and crimes against humanity dampened NGO hopes that Washington's signing of the ICC statute might be worth the compromises needed to win it.

Many groups would "prefer to have the US government strongly behind this Court ... but at what price? At what cost? ... If it means that countries here would have to bend to its will ... then we say, 'Not at all'," Dicker argued.

"There's a clear point where the Court may benefit by the absence of the United States," contended Rhonda Copelon of the NGO Women's Caucus. Jelena Pejic, senior programme officer for the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, added that "the Court could certainly exist without the United States - no doubt about it", and said that such a possibility could become an issue here next week.

Yet the stance of the United States was not the only problem that rights groups detected in the recent debate by nations of a discussion paper circulated under the guidance of the Committee of the Whole chairman, Philippe Kirsch.

Rishmawi said that although Washington set the tone, many nations, from superpowers to smaller states, have been backing down on allowing the ICC to have authority over aggression, internal conflicts and other crimes.

In this week's debate on internal armed conflict, for example, 69 states argued in favour of excluding it from crimes that the ICC would deal with while only 16 insisted on keeping it in the statute, Rishmawi said.

States are also coming to accept a restrictive definition of crimes against humanity in which suspects would have to be found to have known about systematic plans to conduct attacks - plans which are normally secret, noted Christopher Hall of Amnesty International. "Many diplomats here are accepting the lowest common denominator just to get a statute," Hall said.

That doesn't mean that the conference is doomed to result in a weak Court, many activists insist. "It's clear in my mind that all of the elements for a successful conclusion to this conference continue to exist," Pace said. "The majority of countries ... are not accepting a lowest-common-denominator, compromise formulation."

The problem may come over the weekend as governments consult over what is expected to be a compromise package reflecting the frantic deal-making of recent days. "The numbers exist (for an effective ICC) - the question is whether the political will, the political courage to stand up for an effective statute is there," said Pace. Farhan Haq/IPS