U.S. opposition to a world criminal court, when representatives from dozens of countries met in June 1998 to discuss this issue, was based on its soldiers. What if, Americans wanted to know, this court decided to investigate not just the clearly inhumane acts of despots but second-guessed U.S. military decisions and held the troops responsible?

Now they know.

Americans walked away from the Rome meeting without signing on to the idea of a criminal court, which would hear cases against individuals accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes agaainst humanity. As envisioned, it would be similar to The Hague, which hears cases against governments. So far, 92 other nations have signed the treaty to create what would be called the International Court of Justice. The court is expected to come into being withing the three or four years, when at least 60 nations take the next step of ratifying the treaty.

The ad hoc criminal tribunal established to invesitgate war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, however, already exists and has ended up examining NATO’s bombing in Kosovo. Though U.S. officials were aware of the internal report from The Hague, they never challenged the international body’s authority to act. The tribunal was created seven years ago to prosecute those accused of acts against humanity as Yugoslavia broke up, but the 78-day bombing campaign by NATO also became a target.

The result of the investigation, according to news reports, is that tribunal had virtually no possibility of bringing charges against U.S. or NATO personnel. The tribunal’s chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, made it a point last week to emphasize that there was not even a formal inquiry into NATO actions concerning Kosovo.

The lesson is twofold. First, that the United States cannot expect to be held exempt from world standards of behavior in warfare; and that, second, the care Americans and NATO took to minimize collateral damage during the bombing was easily recognized by the tribunal — that is, good behavior counts, even in something so political as an international court.

The experience may not add a U.S. signature to the Rome treaty, but it should lessen some of the fear the White House has had over the coming court. It is an experience that is likely to be repeated in the coming years.