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02:49 PM ET 11/13/97

Former President Carter urges international court

By Mike Cooper

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Former President Jimmy Carter signed a

declaration Thursday urging the United Nations to set up a

permanent international court to prevent war crimes and protect

human rights.

War crimes and genocide in Rwanda and in the former

Yugoslavia went unpunished while offenders ``have basically gone

free,'' Carter said at a one-day Carter Center conference.

``Although hundreds of criminals have been identified, even

indicted, very few of them have been brought to trial. None, so

far as I know, so far have been punished,'' Carter said.

He said the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

based in Arusha, Tanzania, was disorganized, at a ``horrific''

cost. The tribunal was established to bring to justice the

leaders of genocide in 1994.

``Had we had an international criminal court at that time

... we would have avoided many of the terrible atrocities that

have occurred just in recent months as a follow-up to the

genocidal acts in Rwanda just a few years ago,'' he said.

European Humanitarian Affairs Commissioner Emma Bonino said

the failure to bring Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and

Gen. Ratko Mladic to justice in the former Yugoslavia may tempt

others to commit ``copy cat crimes.''

``This is the real snowball that is going on,'' Bonino said.

``Impunity is becoming very, very, very contagious.

Everybody thinks that they can do whatever they want without

adequate reaction from the international community. This is

what, I think, we have to stop,'' she said.

Carter and Bonino spoke at the Carter Center conference

co-sponsored by the organization No Peace Without Justice.

Thursday's session was one of several planned before a

diplomatic conference in Rome, Italy, next summer.

Carter said the U.N. Security Council should not have veto

power over cases brought to the proposed court. ``If we do

permit this loophole in the handling of cases, in my opinion, it

would be almost self-destructive,'' he said.

The two-page declaration signed by Carter called for an

''independent, impartial, effective and fair'' international

criminal court with an independent prosecutor to be used when

''national court systems were either unwilling or unable to

carry out their roles and thereby perpetuated impunity for these

crimes.''

The United Nations set up in 1993 an international tribunal

based in the Hague for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and

the tribunal on Rwanda's genocide in 1994.

^REUTERS@

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