ABSTRACT: The announcement of the world conference for the creation of the "International crimes court" scheduled in Siracusa next December. The court would be a sort of permanent Nürnberg trial, but it would do more than prosecute the war criminals: it would have authority on the aggressions of one state against another, on genocide, apartheid, slavery, torture, piracy, hostage kidnapping, crimes against the environment, theft of nuclear matériel. "States will no longer be forced to take the law into their own hands, but they will rely, as any citizen of a self-respecting community, on the judgment of an outside institution. They will appeal to this Court".

(IL GIORNALE, November 19th, 1992)

The new world order calls for a new international law. This view has lead several parliamentarians from all over the world and myself to promote the creation of an international criminal court at the United Nations. All the aspects pertaining to its establishment, which had been decided and envisaged since the 1948 convention against genocide and was subsequently lost in red tape, will be discussed at the world conference scheduled in Siracusa from 2 to 5 December. The objective of the transnational association (Parliamentarians for Global Action) I am a member of is removing the monopoly of international policy from diplomacy and governments, enhancing on the contrary the role of parliamentarians and United Nations. If we succeed in having the UN juridical commission pass a draft constitution of the criminal court, we could affirm to have laid the bases for a democratic, unbiased and effective management of international crises.

My idea of the Court is a permanent but fast-operating body, urged each time by the governments concerned and with powers of investigation by means of UN internal structures, starting from observers. Countries such as Australia, Canada, Venezuela, Japan and Zimbabwe have supported the idea of the Court for a least a decade. The odd fact is that the first to vehemently advocate the creation of the court was the tiny state of Trinidad-Tobago. The idea gained increasing support not "thanks" to starvation in Africa, but only after the case of the Western hostages in Iraq and the tug-of-war between the UN and Libya on the extradition of the alleged hijackers of the Pan-Am aircraft crashed at Lockerbie and the atrocities of the war in Bosnia.

Thus, the court would be a sort of permanent Nürnberg trial, which would do more than simply prosecute the war criminals. It would have authority over the aggressions of one State against another, on genocide, apartheid, slavery, torture, piracy, hostage kidnapping, crimes against the environment, theft of nuclear matériel, and so on. It could be objected that, if Serbian President Milosevic were ever to appear before the court, sentencing him by default would be practically useless. Trials such as the Nürnberg one are usually held once peace has been declared. Could they ever prevent or quell a war? And yet, if, for instance, the former Serbian-Montenegrin vice home minister Mihaly Kertes, a supporter of "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia, were sentenced, Milosevic would necessarily take on the burdensome political responsibility of denying extradition. It is no coincidence that the proposal of an international criminal court advanced considerably in 1992, when the war in Yugoslavia was in full swing. For years i

t had been relegated to the disputations of the Un juridical committee, blocked by the opposition of the U.S. and the Soviet Union, who believed that they could solve "on their own" the crises within their relative areas of influence decided in Yalta. Gorbachev was the one who changed his mind in 1987, actively urging for modifications. Resolution N. 780 of the UN Security Council (6 October 1992) turned out to be decisive: paragraph 2 of the same encourages an international commission against violations of the Geneva convention on war prisoners and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.

In such context, the meeting of December 2-5 in Siracusa will not be a mere academic exercise. The cold war, which previously represented a point of reference for the States, is now over. We have experienced the peace of the indifferent, rich, white Northern Europe--an unjust peace which has allowed for order despite the terror. Now that the terror is gone, and walls have collapsed, we witness the outbreak of a multitude of conflicts. The only "regulating" body has so far been the UN Security Council, despite its limits. The international conventions and treaties are not applied (or inapplicable) because of a lack of coercive and monitoring instruments, such as the Geneva Convention or the convention on genocide. The idea of the Court is the first step, not the solution of the new order. But it is an essential step if we want the international community at large to be ruled by an actual separation between executive, legislative and judiciary powers. States will no longer be forced to take the law into their

own hands, but will rely, as every citizen of a self-respecting community, on the judgment of an outside institution. They will appeal to the Court.