Uganda mentions the ICC at the General Assembly; the speech is excerpted below.

September 27, 1999

ALFRED MUBANDA, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of Uganda, said that at the dawn of the twenty-first century, by all standards, the African continent remained marginalized. The economic situation and the living conditions for the vast majority of Africans was a cause for grave concern.

The statistics were dismal, he said. Due to a significant decrease in the demand for primary commodities, Africa's export earnings had also been on the decline. Therefore, the challenge before the international community was adopt and implement concrete measures to mitigate the negative consequences of globalization on African economies. The United Nations must take the lead in efforts to restructure the international monetary system to make it more responsive to the plight of Africa and other developing countries. Since transnational corporations would play a pivotal role in that inequitable economic system, the United Nations should take a more active role to regulate their activities. He proposed the revival of the United Nations Centre and the United Nations Commission on Transnational Corporations to aid in that regard. " Uganda was wholly committed to the observance in the region of human rights and fundamental freedoms and had placed into the basic law of the country the universal principles of human

rights. He went on to say that in a referendum next year, the people of Uganda would exercise their free choice to determine their system of governance. He invited observers and others who might wish to do so to view the referendum when the time came.

He denounced the violence in Rwanda and said that, apart form concerns about Uganda's own national security and territorial integrity, it was unacceptable that gross violations of the right to life should again be carried out in its neighbourhood or anywhere else in the world. "It is vital for us all to recognize the sanctity of life", he said. To that end, he went on to say, Uganda would resist all tendencies which created a situation "conducive to the increase of refugees and displaced persons".

The violence in the Great Lakes region made the creation of the International Criminal Court a matter of profound relevance. The ramifications of the Rwanda genocide continued to date and the region remained a potential "hotbed of volcanic proportions" for new and wider waves of similar violations of human rights. "Once the International Criminal Court comes into force", he said, "it holds humanity's best hope for a new world legal order under which nobody, no matter how high or low, can engage in horrendous crimes with impunity." He cited the continued instability of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, and the Sudan as causes for continued concern in the region and the international community.