October 30, 1995

Statement by Mr. Peter McRae of the Delegation of Canada

...We strongly support the establishment now of a preparatory committee to prepare a text for adoption by states at a diplomatic conference. As to the number and duration of the preparatory committee meetings, we should be guided by the double objective of allowing for sufficient time as well as the broadest possible representation of member states to address constructively and successfully the many difficult issues which confront us. We see advantages in having more sessions of shorter duration concentrated on specific issues and in the idea of allocating certain issues for discussion within a designated meeting schedule. This approach should be more conducive to making concrete progress and would allow delegations to plan and prepare their work more efficiently. We would therefore support any proposals to rationalize the work of the preparatory committee in this manner. Along the same lines, we attach great importance to differentiating the issues according to whether, on the one hand, they are susceptible

to moving on to the drafting phase and those, on the other, which are in need of further substantive discussion as to how the preparatory meeting should be organized. We would therefore recommend that the Chairman conduct informal consultations on the work schedule and approach which would be acceptable to the majority of delegations...

...We would also like to set the date for a diplomatic conference as early as possible, preferably some time in 1997. We must not let any disagreement regarding the specific dates of the diplomatic conference detract from the importance of our message to the international community, namely, the adoption of a statute for a permanent international criminal court. In this connection, we would like to thank Italy for its generous offer to host the diplomatic conference.