Emma Bonino

Transnational Radical Party Secretary

ABSTRACT: The international law is based on ratified conventions that are mere lip-service owing to the absence of a jurisdiction and of an applicative instrument. The campaign for the establishment of an ad hoc tribunal against crimes in the former Yugoslavia is a first political step for the establishment of the permanent tribunal as well. A fundamental point proposed by the Italian project is that in no case will the death penalty be sentenced or applied. This tribunal was voted by the Member States of the Security Council such as Russia, United States and China, which resort instead to capital punishment "for crimes of national law that are certainly less serious that organized genocide, for instance". This opened contradictions, which the abolitionists should be able to take advantage of.

("HANDS OFF CAIN", 1 February 1994)

We all know that the international law is based on conventions, on covenants that are ratified by all or most countries, and which go no further than appeals, manifestos and expressions of good intentions because of a lack of jurisdiction and of an instrument for their application.

We regret not having requested, when the ad hoc tribunal for ex-Yugoslavia was established, the creation of a permanent tribunal for crimes in every part of the earth, from Burundi to Somalia to the countries of Europe or America. We know there is a Convention on Genocide and Covenants on human rights, but that the juridical instruments that can make these conventions binding or applicable have never existed. We have been incapable of obtaining one as a political community and as a national or international society. The campaign we have been carrying out for the establishment of an ad hoc tribunal for crimes in the former Yugoslavia is a first political step for the creation also of a permanent tribunal. Such body must therefore be established by 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations. If we could create this first segment of jurisdiction relative to the international conventions we would have bridged the gap existing between the declamation of the principles and their application. The statute

of the ad hoc tribunal for crimes in ex-Yugoslavia has included two essential points proposed by the Italian project: in no case can capital executions be sentenced or carried out. There will be no Nuremberg Trial, with the horrors of the hangings that followed it. What is more important, this Tribunal is established by the Security Council, i.e. the international authority which, while often criticized, is the highest and universally acknowledged. This authority, which in the system of the United Nations is the only one with binding powers, has established that the Tribunal will not issue or carry out capital executions. The acceptance of this rule opens contradictions which the abolitionists can take advantage of. This tribunal, which excludes any use of capital punishment for the gravest crimes - such as genocide - was unanimously voted by the Security Council Members States: by Russia, the United States and China, countries that experience the contradiction of resorting instead to the death penalty for c

rimes of international law that are certainly less deplorable than an organized genocide, for instance.

The American Justice Minister has already expressed reservations on the fact of belonging to an executionist country and of having voted, within the Security Council, for the adoption of a tribunal which explicitly excludes the death penalty.

It is a contradiction we could use in the permanent Member States of the Security Council.

The field of the law, of human rights as civil and political rights, includes themes that are too important to be left to the governments alone, to the diplomacies and to the experts. They should become culture, and organized culture; not individual testimony but common objectives. I do not believe in culture as an abstract dimension, detached from active commitment, incapable of scheduling a campaign, on modest but decisive objectives for the future.

As Secretary of the transnational radical party, along with 500 parliamentarians from all over the world who are members of our organization and thousands of citizens from 40 different countries, I am actively struggling to affirm rights, principles, duties and rules that must be valid beyond national frontiers, and that must respect the principles on which international coexistence is based upon.

Because I believe in the need for this; because anyone who belongs to any ideology or political part can agree on a series of common objectives we are proposing, I have no trouble and in fact feel the duty to ask you, you are members of the League for the abolition of the death penalty, to join the transnational radical transparty. If we remain divided, each in his country, we will always be weak, while our rivals will have greater structures and greater capacities of communicating fastly and making rapid decisions.