International Criminal Court

Third session (11-21 February 1997)

New York, 11th February 1997

Morning meeting

Introduction and working group on Definition and Elements of Crimes

It opened this morning the first week of the works of the Preparatory Committee for the establishment of an International Criminal Court. The Chairman, Mr. Adriaan Bos, introducing the works of the two working groups on "Definition and Elements of Crimes" and "Principles of Criminal Law and Penalties", invited the delegations to make the maximum use of their time to reach a concrete text to be adopted by a plenipotentiary convention. The Italian representative, Ambassador Francesco Paolo Fulci, speaking about the offer of his Government to host the diplomatic conference, proposed Rome as the seat of the conference justifying this option with the need to respond to some practical problems of the delegations, such as the necessity to be in constant contact with their embassies and capitals.

Furthermore Mr. Fulci made liable his Government's intention to prepare as soon as possible the national legislative and financial instruments for the funding of the conference.

During the morning were 43 the delegates who took the floor about the first point of the agenda: the definition of the crime of "Genocide" and most of them expressed their agreement with the strict definition contained in article 2 of the Convention on Genocide of 1948, which has become a universally accepted source of customary international law on the matter.