RESOLUTION ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PERMANENT INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

The European Parliament,

A. having regard to the growing number of war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed in a large number of countries and going unpunished,

B. whereas it is urgently necessary to create the basic core of an impartial international justice system, mainly in order to try war crimes and crimes against humanity wherever they may be committed,

C. whereas significant progress has been made in this direction thanks to the creation and the first concrete actions of the ad hoc international tribunals on former Yugoslavia and Rwanda,

D. welcoming the fact that there is no provision for the death penalty either in the statutes of the ad hoc tribunals or in the draft statutes of the permanent court,

E. whereas the 50th session of the UN General Assembly formally decided in autumn 1995 to instruct a preparatory committee to complete the work on putting the statutes of the international court into their definitive form with a view to enabling the UN to convene the constituent conference of the Permanent International Criminal Court,

F. whereas the preparatory committee closed its last session on 30 August 1996, calling on the UN General Assembly to convene the plenipotentiary diplomatic conference before the end of 1998,

G. whereas in spite of this positive outcome, obtained chiefly as a result of the determination of a large number of Member States of the European Union, there is still strong opposition from some non-member countries as well as reservations from two Member States of the EU,

H. whereas the Italian Government has already stated its willingness to host the plenipotentiary diplomatic conference for the establishment of the Court,

1. Calls on the Council and the Member States to reach a common position as soon as possible on the need to establish the Permanent International Criminal Court, and to act in concert at the 51st General Assembly of the UN to ensure that it renews the mandate of the Preparatory Committee and takes the decision to convene a plenipotentiary diplomatic conference to establish a Permanent International Criminal Court before the end of 1998;

2. Calls, therefore, on the Irish Presidency and the Commission to do all within their power to ensure that the Union speaks with one voice on this important issue;

3. Stresses that the Union must be involved, in budgetary terms, in the efforts to set up the permanent Court;

4. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the governments of the Member States, the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the President of the General Assembly of the United Nations.