Information bulletin on the campaigns of the Transnational Radical Party
Issue #20 24 July, 2098
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* Editor's Office: Mihai Romanciuc - Marco Perduca, Via di Torre Argentina 76, 00186 Rome (IT)
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"The establishment of the Court is still a gift of hope to future generations, and a giant step forward in the march toward universal human rights and the rule of law".
Kofi Annan, Rome, July 18, 1998
>> INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT: VICTORY!
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT TO TRY WAR CRIMES GENOCIDE AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY IS A HISTORIC VICTORY FOR THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY AS WELL AS FOR THE TRANSNATIONAL RADICAL PARTY. WE MUST KEEP UP THE MOMENTUM AND CONCENTRATE ON OUR NEXT STEP, THE WORLDWIDE MOBILIZATION FOR THE UNIVERSAL MORATORIUM OF CAPITAL EXECUTIONS IN 1998.
Rome - After five weeks of intense negotiations, the Diplomatic Conference of plenipotentiaries has adopted the statute for the International Criminal Court (ICC); it is not a perfect text, it is not entirely what we hoped for during the last four years, but it is a document that contains many positive aspects and that represents a first step towards a radical reform of international law and justice and of international community institutions.
The ICC statute affirms the idea of a universal jurisdiction and it equips this idea with the necessary tools to implement it. It also has specific provisions that create a proprio motu Prosecutor, who can initiate investigations without depending from the Security Council; moreover, for the first time in an international treaty, victims have the right to reparations and restitutions, and, last but not least, the statute excludes the death penalty.
There are of course aspects of the document that could have been different and more effective, but if we consider the task of putting together many different juridical systems and democratic and non democratic Governments, we can be extremely happy and proud of the outcome of the Diplomatic Conference.
We have fought intensively over the last four years for this statute - now called the 'Rome Treaty' - and we should positively accept the result of the Diplomatic Conference. We have the Statute, what we need now is the Court. In order to have the ICC entry into force we need 60 ratifications; so far only 26 countries (*) have signed the Treaty in Rome, we need to keep Governments under pressure, not only those that will be asked to finance the Court once it will be established, but also those that will need it in the future and do not play a prominent role in international relations.
In the last five weeks, we have followed the various working groups of the Conference, webcast the plenary session, we have provided small delegations with juridical expertise, we have prepared a daily news agency, interviewed delegates for Radio Radicale; we have paid for ad pages in the 'Corriere della Sera' and in the 'International Herald Tribune', we have organized demonstrations and a torch-light march, we have performed a speaking marathon in front of the FAO - to which citizens, parliamentarians, delegates and TRP members participated for almost two days - and over 800 people have fasted for dialogue with delegates.
After this historic event, we must keep up the momentum and take advantage of this advancement of justice, pushing for other reforms. We believe that the time now is ripe for a worldwide mobilization to request the universal moratorium of capital executions. With this conviction, and with your strength and participation, we can make 1998 become much more than the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we can make it become the year of the international rule of law.
>> I CARE, BECAUSE I HAVE A DREAM.
With this slogan over 800 members of the Radical Party have tried to establish a contact with delegates, the press and other organizations present at the Conference. Some delegations have acknowledged our undertaking and have showed their support to our hunger strike. We believe that part of the injection of effective political will at the fourth week of the conference is also linked to the public support of the issue.
What follows is the text prepared by Paolo Pietrosanti, Member of the General Council of the Radical Party, to launch the initiative of the hunger strike.
I care, because I have a dream.
We are ordinary women and men.
We have no other title but that of being represented by you who are now operating in Rome for the establishment of the International Criminal Court.
We admire your work, and we are aware that you represent more than your own country, you represent the peoples and each person of the entire world, including ourselves.
Your commitment, your work is of INTEREST TO US and we are CLOSELY INVOLVED in it.
The establishment of an independent jurisdictional authority able to judge in the name of all and each person is of our personal concern, and affects our present and our future.
We look at your commitment with true and sincere hope and trust.
We are aware of the complexity of your work and we know that the establishment of the International Criminal Court is a novel and most important event, that will make the difference from a cultural and political point of view since it affirms a new, unprecedented over-national sovereignty.
Because we want you to know how much we trust you and your work, because we aim at strengthening your intelligence and willingness, because we want you to know how much we care, because we want you to be aware of our concern and attention to what you do, because of all these reasons, as civilized and nonviolent people aware of the power of truth and dialogue, we want to give each of you part of our strength, our hope, our trust.
We want to give substance to this hope and faith, to this dialogue and its inherent strength and rigour that is as old as hills. This is what we have been taught by Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
This is why we have chosen to fast in these days.
We will abstain from eating until the end of the Rome Diplomatic Conference to ask you a few things:
- we want you to know that we care about what you do;
- we want you to know that we will do our best to help the media follow and understand the value of your commitment and effort so that it can become the object of an increasingly wide debate;
- we want you to know that we are giving you some of our strength, of our energy, so that your conscience and intelligence can draw nourishment from it.
So that the International Criminal Court can stop being a mere beautiful dream.
Ghandi called this nonviolence, this willingness, "Satyagraha": strength of truth. Truth that is not absolute but to be verified.
You are achieving a great test of truth that is of our concern.
The assertion of legality and justice through the dialogue is of our interest; it has to do with our lives.
This is why we give you our fasting: to give you the strength and capability to read deep into your conscience, into our hope and faith.
>> MARCO PANNELLA EXPRESSES HIS APPRECIATION FOR THE OUTCOME OF THE ROME CONFERENCE.
After a few months of silence, Marco Pannella, founder and leader of the Radical Party, has issued a press release from the hospital where is recovering from a heart operation. In the Statement, Pannella congratulates all those who have been thoroughly involved in the radical campaign for the creation of the ICC, from Emma Bonino, current European Commissioner and former Secretary of the Radical Party, to Sergio Stanzani, President of No Peace Without Justice, from TRP Treasurer Danilo Quinto to TRP Secretary Olivier Dupuis, passing through Paolo Vigevano Editor of Radio Radicale, Pannella has underlined the political role played by public opinion through the transnational mobilization of the Radical Party, and has wished to be ready soon to fight together with his fellow radicals on other campaign for the international rule of law.
>> OUR NEXT STEP, THE UNIVERSAL MORATORIUM
After the significant success for international justice of the Statue of the first international permanent tribunal without capital punishment, we must keep up the momentum and make the international community make a final decision on the death penalty from an international law perspective, as they have already done in Rome last week, and establish a moratorium of executions with the view of the total abolition.
In the next few weeks, we will be involved in asking UN Member States to formally submit an item for the UN General Assembly titled "Universal Moratorium of Capital Executions". Once again, we will need your help and contributions to organize the final parts of our international campaign for the moratorium and affirm the inviolability of the human life by Governments.
During the last years, we have collected signatures on international parliamentary appeals, we have proposed parliamentary motions on the issue in various parts of the world, we have pushed for resolutions at the European Parliament and, for two years in a row, in cooperation with the association Hands Off Cain (federated with TRP), we have been able to have a clear and firm resolution adopted by the Commission on Human Rights of Geneva. This 'revolutionary' document asks the UN Secretary-General to Compile a report on the universal situation of capital executions, considers the death penalty a violation of fundamental human rights and urges the UNGA to establish a moratorium of capital executions.
At the last plenary session in Strasbourg of the European Parliament, under the initiative of Radical Eurodeputies Gianfranco Dell'Alba and Olivier Dupuis, Secretary of the Transnational Radical Party, the EP has adopted the last of a series of resolutions in favor of the moratorium at the United Nations.
What follows is the text of the above mentioned resolution on the question of the death penalty and the establishment of a universal moratorium on executions, tabled on 18/06/98.
The European Parliament,
- having regard to its previous resolutions on the death penalty,
A. whereas in 1994 the United Nations General Assembly rejected by only 8 votes a resolution on the establishment of a universal moratorium on the death penalty,
B. recalling the 1997 resolution of the UN Commission on Human Rights (E/CN.4/1998/L.20) which maintains that "abolition of the death penalty contributes to the enhancement of human dignity and to the progressive development of human rights",
C. recalling the resolution of the UN Commission on Human Rights of 3 April 1998, (E/CN.4/1998/L.12) which calls for the establishment of a universal moratorium on executions;
D. welcoming the latest report of the UN Secretary-General which contains information on changes and positive developments in law and practice concerning the death penalty world-wide (E/CN.4/1998/82),
E. welcoming the fact that several countries, while still keeping the death penalty in their legislation, are applying a de facto moratorium on executions,
1. Calls on the Member States to undertake all necessary steps to ensure that the question of the death penalty is included on the agenda of the next session of the UN General Assembly;
2. Requests the Council to give a mandate to the Austrian Presidency to coordinate the initiatives of the EU Member States concerning the inclusion of a universal moratorium on executions on the agenda of the next session of the UN General Assembly;
3. Calls on the Council, the Member States and the Commission, acting within their respective remits, to table at the next UN General Assembly a resolution for the introduction of a universal moratorium on executions;
4. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council, the governments of the Member States, the UN Secretary-General and the President of the UN General Assembly.
>> YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
In order to achieve our goal, that is the goal of all those who care about freedom and liberty and the respect of fundamental human rights, we need your time, we need your ideas, we of course, and as always, need your contribution and we ask you to become a member of the Transnational Radical Party to give us the necessary strength that we need to face the next five months and win again for humanity and the universal rule of law.
Thank you.
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