MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

29 September 1999

Dear Secretary General

Thank you for your letter dated 11 August 1999. In response, kindly note that no presentation to Parliament has yet been made by the South African Government on the subject of ratification of the International Criminal Court.

However, the Government is in the process of preparing enabling, ratification legislation for the purpose of presenting it to Parliament. To this end, the Government convened a Southern African Regional Conference of legal experts, during the month of July 1999, to study the Statute of the International Criminal Court and prepare model ratification legislation to be used by the region for its national ratification process. We have been led to believe various other regions, including Europe, are embarking on a similar consultative process and we therefore take the liberty to enclose herewith a copy of the model ratification legislation prepared by the aforementioned Southern African Regional Conference.

We cannot at this stage ascertain the date when we will conclude our ratification process but are happy to inform that we have begun the process and estimate that we will be amongst the first sixty States to ratify the Statute of the International Criminal Court and thus ensure that the Court is operational.

With kind regards

PP NKOSAZANA DLAMINI-ZUMA

Olivier Dupuis

Member of European Parliament,

Secretary General of Transnational Radical Party

Fax: 0032-2-284.71.98