Subject: From TRANSNATIONAL - Satyagraha - 4 July 1994 - No. 5
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Fortnightly Newsletter of the Radical Party
A PERMANENT INTERNATIONAL COURT TO PROSECUTE GENOCIDE
CAMPAIGN BY FAX TO ++39-6-68979213
Rome, 1 July - A statement by Emma Bonino.
We cannot continue to chase after crimes of genocide. The U.N. should
institute the Permanent International Court immediately. To this end we
are continuing our strategy of exerting pressure at an international level
and we have set up the above fax with the intention of sending all the
messages of support we receive to the United Nations.
The report written up by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights states that
genocide is being perpetrated in Rwanda and that those responsible must be
punished by an international tribunal.
As a permanent international court for war crimes does not yet exist, the
U.N. should - according to a statement issued in Geneva yesterday - either
temporarily arrogate to itself jurisdiction over such crimes, in order to
bring the accused to trial, or extend to Rwanda the jurisdiction of the
Tribunal created for the former Yugoslavia.
"In principal, this is an important statement because it afforms that the
'legal road to peace' is not only the path of legality that we must take,
but also the only suitable way of building a new world order that is
humanly sustainable. It is however important to understand that we can no
longer chase after justice and desperately try to uphold the law with
regard to the genocide presently underway. In other words, it is
unthinkable that we should consider setting up an international tribunal
every time situations occur in which international humanitarian law is
gravely violated. In Geneva, the International Law Commission is drafting
the Statute of the permanent International Court. It is up to the U.N.
General Assembly to approve this Statute during its next session in
September, and to give the go ahead for the institution of the body that
will have international jurisdiction over acts of genocide and aggression,
war crimes and crimes against humanity."
Meanwhile, we are launching a first initiative to mobilize public opinion
and, starting today, we are asking you to send supportive messages to make
sure the United Nations and governments do not lose any more time in
opening up the road to international legality. It requires the same amount
of time to create a Permanent International Court as it does to institute
any other organ. Extending the mandate of the Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia to Rwanda, on the other hand, has no practical credibility:
enough to say that a Public Prosecutor has still not been appointed for
this Tribunal.
