The 9/11 Truth movement has been wrestling for years over the challenge of how to obtain a real investigation that would analyze the evidence, such as brought forth by Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth and countless others, and follow it wherever it leads. Many, for instance, don’t trust that the US Congress (which brought us the omissions and distortions of the 9/11 Commission Report) would have the political will or the simple veracity to expose these incalculable misdeeds and trace them to their roots. Indeed perhaps most who are seeking justice believe that it will only be found in a venue outside of the United States.

One ray of hope inside the US might be a prominent initiative – Sen. Patrick Leahy’s “Truth Commission” – though currently stalled. A special prosecutor could be appointed as was done to investigate President Nixon, but we know that that is not going to happen unless 9/11 Truth becomes much more familiar to the US public. The idea of universal jurisdiction is controversial but is gaining increasing acceptance. It dates back at least to the 1945 Nuremberg Trials. Citing the concept of universal jurisdiction, two Spanish judges indicted Augusto Pinochet and six Bush administration figures. One of those judges is currently at the International Criminal Court.  There are efforts underway to contact him.

Many initiatives have been undertaken by the Accountability Movement concerning other alleged crimes in the Bush Administration but none involving the UN or International Criminal Court (ICC) so far.

The International Criminal Court can only prosecute crimes committed on or after its founding date, July 1, 2002.

As of March 2010, 111 states are members of the Court, and a further 37 countries, including Russia and the United States have signed but not ratified the Court’s founding treaty – the Rome Statute. A number of states, including China and India are critical of the court and have not signed the Rome Statute.

The ICC can generally exercise jurisdiction only in cases where the accused is a national or a state party, the alleged crime took place on the territory of a state party, or when a situation is referred to the court by the United Nations Security Council.

The ICC is designed to complement existing national judicial systems: it can exercise its jurisdiction only when national courts are unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute such crimes. Primary responsibility to investigate and punish crimes is therefore left to individual states.

The Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States was issued on July 22, 2004. NIST’s final report on the WTC Towers was issued in October 2005. Fraudulent statements in these documents therefore could be subject to ICC investigation.

The AE911Truth Justice Team has also explored the concept of an International Tribunal, modeled after the Russell War Crimes Tribunal of the Sixties (organized through the efforts of Bertrand Russell). We found that Russell’s Tribunal left a legacy in the form of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (Tribunale Permanente Dei Popoli), an organization which facilitates but does not fund similar tribunals.

Currently, the BRussells Tribunal [sic] has been active in Brussels, Belgium, and a Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal is being held in Madrid on the subject of multinational corporations.

There are at least three types of tribunals:

• International Citizens’ Commissions (described by Arthur Jay and Judith A. Klinghoffer in Mobilizing Public Opinion to Advance Human Rights and Russell, Schoenman, and Chomsky in Against the Crime of Silence) which have only moral efficacy and rely on the statutes of their participants.

• Grand Juries (described by Richard D. Younder in The People’s Panel) whose powers in the UK and USA are continually under pressure from, and subject to change by, the authoritarians of the time.

• Truth Commissions (described by Priscilla Hayner in Unspeakable Truths and proposed by Senator Leahy) which are created, sometimes with foreign financial help, by governments to expiate their own crimes.

AE911Truth will provide evidence to any grand juries or international tribunals that are dedicated to exposing the truth about the destruction of the three World Trade Center towers on 9/11.

We hope that there will be national subcommittees devoted to creating grand juries in several countries, and another committee devoted to the creation of an international tribunal. International teams would consist of members interested in working either on a 9/11 grand jury in their country or on an international tribunal. In Canada, international legal experts are moving forward with the “11/11 Project” for an international inquest on the mass crimes of September 11, 2011. (See Barrie Zwicker’s discussion of the 11/ 11 project in his poignant address to the Understanding Deep Politics Conference in Santa Cruz, CA in May 2010.)

An immediate priority for AE911Truth, no matter what the venue of justice, is the cataloging, safeguarding, and certifying of the physical evidence, and the taking of notarized sworn statements from 9/11 witnesses. AE911Truth is committed to supporting the pursuit of justice. We encourage those who are interested, no matter where you are located, to join us in this cause. There is no greater calling in these times than that of the patriot who steps forward and risks everything in the pursuit of truth and justice at this critical time in our country's history.