Steven Den Beste has a great discussion of recent news in the ICC negotiations, the 5th amendment and why the US is having such a tough time working with the EU in this area.   He had a previous article outlining some of the constitutional impediments to the ICC. 

I'd argue that many of the differences here come from 2 basic issues:

1) Europeans see individual national constitutions as a point in time governance agreement.   As a result, they see them in the long term as fundamendally subservient to the EU and other transnational bodies which arguably will have a longer shelf life.   Given EU members' comparatively rocky histories with their various constitutions, it's not hard to see why.    Broadly, the various "peoples" of Europe existed before their constitutions.   By contrast, the majority of the "peoples" of the US exist here as a result of our constitution.  

It's why in the US, levying the charge of "that's unconstitutional!" is so darn close to saying "it's un-American".  The Linkage isn't as direct in countries like Germany, Italy, etc.  -- "unconstitutional" in Italy certainly doesn't immediately connote "un-Italian" (the UK is probably the farthest exception to this).   There's a timelessness and universality that Americans see in the Constitution that many Europeans just don't understand.

2) Europeans bestow a much more uniform level of trust in individual members of the community of nation-states than the US.   Just because Iraq, Sudan, Syria, N. Korea, Libya, Iran, Zimbabwe, etc. are somehow "nations", the EU view is that this automatically entitles them to full privileges before transnational bodies such as the ICC.   Mix this in with a little post-modernist Western self-loathing and you actually end up with a psychology that occasionally elevates these nations and gives them even more privileges.

The problem, of course, is that in the context of the ICC, these privileges include the right to press charges against (individuals/troops from) other countries.  

It doesn't take a genius to guess which nations' troops are:

• most likely to be deployed in a "peace keeping" role where the situation is violent, fluid, and subject to after-the-fact interpretation  (no one else really has the capabilities to send in the troops who can be effective at this point in a situation;   the other folks come in after the peace has been well established)
• a favorite political punching bag in any situation

Because of both practical considerations (we don't feel like getting our butts sued off in trivial lawsuit after lawsuit) and idealistic considerations (it's weird for us to sit at a table w/ thug-ocracies and bestow them equal rights / consideration;  we can hardly FATHOM a credible human rights lawsuit with Libya as plaintiff) we have a hard time seeing eye-to-eye with the EU.

So, the US is forced to cut bi-lateral agreements with various countries (whom tend to meet our more restrictive definition of what constitutes a legitimate "nation") to find a backdoor. 

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UPDATE:  A friend forwarded this op-ed from the Indian news mag Frontline about the ICC affair and the writer's opinions on US unilateralism.  It's an interesting read to see the perspective from the other side of the fence. 

The author's conclusion particularly reveals true goal of the deep adherents to the ICC:

The inequality of states in international politics lends its weight to impunity - an inequality that the U.S., for one, insists be allowed to remain. 

My goal is not to persist inequality in the future but rather to recognize inequality because so many nations are total pieces of crap  ;-)     And the ICC is NOT the first step towards solving inequality (just like giving someone membership in the Honor Society doesn't make them scholastic achievers)

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