World Tibet Network News Friday, June 19, 1998

ROME, June 18 (AFP) - An international human rights body praised a change in France's position on the independence of a proposed international criminal court late Wednesday.

Earlier French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine said that Paris accepted that the court's prosecutor should be allowed to initiate proceedings, modifying its original view that only states or the United Nations Security Council could do so.

However Vedrine said the International Criminal Court (ICC) should not be totally independent of the Security Council.

Richard Dicker, leader of the ICC campaign for the US-based Human Rights Watch, said: "This is an important development that isolates the United States in its opposition to an independent prosecutor.

"Without an independent prosecutor few cases will come before the ICC."

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Bill Richardson, had said Wednesday that the Security Council should act in part as the court's "trigger mechanism" in referring cases for consideration.

"From the point of view not only of law but of vital policy, the court must operate in coordination -- not in conflict -- with the Security Council and its role and powers under the UN Charter,"

Richardson said.

He also argued for the court to have a limited scope, saying: "This court cannot and should not address every crime that goes unpunished, no matter how horrific or atrocious it may be."

The issue of the court's independence has been the biggest sticking point since the idea was first mooted after World War II.

China told the conference Tuesday that the tribunal should not have the right to interfere in a nation's internal affairs. China is particularly concerned over the question of national sovereignty, fearing the issues of its presence in Tibet and repression in that region could end up before an international court.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan opened the talks, due to end July 17, with a plea for the court to be "strong and independent" - including from the United Nations' ultimate decision-makers on the Security Council.