Senator Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wants all US military serving abroad to be safe from prosecution by the new International Criminal Court (ICC).
With the support of Democrat as well as Republican senators on the committee, he has called on the Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, to obtain guarantees from countries where US troops are stationed that they would not extradite US soldiers for trial by the court.
Mr Helms has also called for assurances that "not one soldier" would take part in NATO or international peace-keeping missions until NATO allies and the UN have agreed that US soldiers will not be prosecuted by the court.
The criticism of the court came during testimony by Mr David Scheffer, who represented the US during the five-week negotiations in Rome. These resulted last Friday in the agreement to set up a court to prosecute international war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The US was embarrassed to find itself among only seven countries which voted against setting up the court. The other dissenting countries were China, Israel, Libya, Iraq, Qatar and Yemen. There were 121 states in favour and 21 abstentions.
The US delegation tried unsuccessfully to amend the treaty to ensure that no prosecution could take place without the agreement of the accused's government, or to reserve such powers to the UN Security Council where the US has a veto.
Not only were these US amendments rejected, but the final text would allow the court to prosecute citizens of countries which do not sign the treaty, such as the US.
Mr Scheffer told the Senate subcommittee on international operations that the US had not yet decided on what action to take about the treaty but it still hoped other countries could be persuaded to amend it to meet US needs.
The New York Times in a recent editorial entitled "Undermining an International Court" said that if Washington continues to oppose the treaty, "other nations should proceed with the design and establishment of a serious court. The Clinton administration, for its part, should not compound its isolation by destroying world efforts to make this 50-year dream a reality".