To the kind attention of

Mr Sanjay Dalmia

Member of Parliament

New Delhi, India

Brussels, October 29, 1997

Dear Mr. Dalmia,

I would like to thank you for your letter of 24 October 1997 regarding the establishment of the International Criminal Court, in which you submit to us your suggestions to the statute of this Court.

I understand your attitude concerning the inclusion of the trial of ex-colonial rules within the framework of this Court. However, there are several reasons why we consider that including the possibility to organize such trials would jeopardize the Court itself; let me therefore mention the main ones.

The first point is that for a reason of principle we are not in favour of retrospective juridiction. We think that one of the most important principle of justice is that the people have to be judge by laws they know at the moment they committed the crime. Second point, if the statute of this court was be drafted to punish crimes committed in the past, it would never gain the majority of States needed for its approval; thirdly, the

past crimes are unfortunetly so many, that this court could hardly work on present crimes (war crimes, crimes against humanity and genicide). For these reasons the draft statute of the International Criminal Court does not include retrospective jurisdiction. Negotiations at the UN at present are facing sufficient difficulties to reach the consensus on political

issues like the relationship with the Security Council, relationship with national criminal systems, etc.... And the time is runing out: the Founding Plenipotentiary Conference for establishing it is to be held in June 1998 in Rome.

Still, a lot of work certainly remains to be done to assure that this first element of international law will be really effective. I therefore believe that we can count on your support in our continuous struggle.

Sincerely yours,

Olivier Dupuis, MEP

Secretary General of

Transnational Radical Party