Lawyers push to speed up establishment of world court

Date: 18/03/1999

By Gareth Harding

BARRISTERS from several EU member states have joined forces to urge governments to ratify the statute setting up the International Criminal Court (ICC) as quickly as possible.

In a joint statement, the bar councils of France, Spain, Germany, England and Wales (which together represent more than two-thirds of European barristers) insist that “a permanent court, able to bring to justice perpetrators of the worst crimes imaginable to mankind, is an institution which humanity cannot do without”.

The head of the UK Bar Council Dan Brennan added that the ICC would be the best way of avoiding international complications like those in the Pinochet and Ocalan cases.

The ICC statute, drafted last July after marathon talks in Rome, will only come into force if it is ratified by at least 60 countries. Although all 15 EU member states have signed up to the idea, none has so far put its provisions into national law.

” Ratification creates an ideal opportunity for the EU to assert itself on the international stage, by taking the lead in this matter,” say the lawyers in their statement.

The bar councils of Spain and the UK have gone even further than their French and German colleagues by insisting that the Union should only sign future trade agreements with third countries if they are ready to bow to the will of the ICC.

They say this would be consistent with existing practice, given that 67 European trade agreements contain clauses demanding respect for human rights and democratic principles.

When signatories to the statute met in New York late last month to thrash out how the court will function when up and running, the EU said it would “spare no effort” in working towards early ratification of the accord.