Thursday, September 16, 1999

RWANDA: ICTR judges call for permanent international

court

The president of the International Criminal Tribunal

for Rwanda, Justice Navanethem Pillay, has urged ratification of the Rome Statute setting up a permanent international court to deal with specified crimes including genocide and crimes against humanity. Addressing a UN press briefing in New York on Tuesday, she said now was the appropriate time for the world

to look at the work of the two ad hoc tribunals - for

Rwanda and for the former Yugoslavia. Justice Pillay noted that the Arusha tribunal for Rwanda had been more successful than that at The Hague because of the cooperation it had received from African governments

who had willingly transferred suspects indicted by the court. She noted the UN had set up the two tribunals because it had recognised there could never be peace without justice. "And that is what we are seeing in the outbreak in East Timor today," she added.

Her comments were echoed by the outgoing chief prosecutor of the two tribunals, Justice Louise Arbour. Ending her three-year tenure, she also called for establishing a permanent international criminal court. "Until we have a permanent, standing institution, we will not have achieved, I think, the full capacity that criminal justice can bring to bear, "Associated Press quoted her as telling reporters. Arbour is leaving the UN to take up a seat at the Canadian Supreme Court. Her successor is Carla del Ponte, fomerly Switzerland's attorney-general, who began her new job on Wednesday.