The New York Times

Monday, December 31, 2000

Israel Signs Global Criminal Court Treaty

By REUTERS

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Israel on Sunday signed a landmark treaty creating the world's first permanent criminal court and called the trauma of the Nazi death camps a prime motivation in the fight against future injustices.

The International Criminal Court, based on the principles of the Nazi war crime trials at Nuremberg at the end of the Second World War, would try individuals accused of the world's most heinous crimes: genocide, war crimes and other gross human rights violations.

Israel followed the United States in signing the treaty, the 139th country to do so, shortly before the Sunday midnight deadline. After that, countries can only ratify the document, a lengthy process done through their legislatures. A signature allows a nation to have more influence in establishing the court's procedures.

A signature signals a country's political support for the global court and its intention to ratify the treaty. The tribunal comes into force when 60 countries have ratified it. Twenty-seven have already done so.

The Israeli Cabinet had been divided over whether to sign on to the court. But Israel's U.N. Ambassador Yehuda Lancry acknowledged that President Clinton's decision to sign gave the government the impetus to follow suit.

``The most important country in the world finally decided to sign it,'' he said.

Lancry said that Israel was one of the conceptual founders of the court and that its lawyers and statesmen who contributed to formulating its statutes ``had in mind and in heart the memories of the Holocaust, of the Shoah, the greatest and most heinous crime against mankind.''

THREE-HOUR DELAY

The signing ceremony at U.N. headquarters, however, was delayed for more than three hours while Israel rewrote a declaration it wanted included in the treaty. It had been particularly concerned about provisions that could apply to settlers in occupied territories.

Israel's first version had been phrased as a reservation to the treaty, something permitted for some treaties but not for this one.

The final statement submitted to the U.N. legal department, after consultations with Hans Corell, the chief legal officer, as well as Jerusalem, read, ``The state of Israel signs the statute while rejecting any attempt to interpret provisions thereof in a politically motivated manner against Israel and its citizens.''

Lancry said that despite the signature, Israel still had a long way to go before ratification ``and we hope we will be successful.''

The court, to be based in The Hague, Netherlands, is expected to come into existence in two years. It cannot prosecute people retroactively.

In answer to queries, Lancry said that Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami and Justice Minister Yossi Beilin ``were clearly and are still the driving force'' behind the court.

``They exerted a lot of influence and conviction without neglecting the Israeli concerns. They finally got the agreement of the Israeli government and, of course, Prime MinisterBarak,'' Lancry said.