Aggressive Campaign Planned for Speedy Ratification of the International Criminal Court

By Austin Ruse | 1998

     (NEW YORK – C-FAM) A group called No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ), along with various Member States of the UN General Assembly have launched a world-wide campaign for quick ratification of the new International Criminal Court (ICC). Speaking at a briefing at UN headquarters last week, NPWJ Chairman Marino Busdachin urged the signers of the ICC statutes to ratify the document as rapidly as possible. “If we delay, it will give more time for our opponents to act,” he said. 

     Only four months ago 150 governments convened a stormy five week session in Rome to negotiate what is one of the most important treaty documents of the 20th Century. While the ICC idea has been around for decades, the real impetus for passage began only a few years ago. By their own admission ICC supporters say that at least 50 countries went into the Rome sessions with little or no knowledge of the ICC statutes. Nonetheless, each speaker at last week’s conference urged rapid, some critics say unreflective passage of the treaty. There is a clear feeling among supporters that if passage is delayed or lengthy national debates, the ICC could slip away from them. 

     The ICC would criminalize behavior of individuals in four broad areas; genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression. The ICC would act similarly to the ad hoc war crimes tribunals now underway in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda. 

     Pro-life lobbyists participated in a pitched battle with radical feminists on a number of questions in Rome, particularly over the question of “enforced pregnancy” which many asserted was no more than a back door to international abortion-on-demand. Pro-lifers won a major victory when “enforced pregnancy” was narrowly defined to exclude the question of abortion. This pro-life victory resulted in the division in the radical feminist Women’s Caucus which may not take a position in support of the final ICC document.  

     Charges of negotiating irregularities haunted the final days of the Rome meeting. It has been charged by some western diplomats that conference chairman, Canadian Philippe Kirch rewrote whole sections of treaty language which had already been negotiated by sovereign states. It is also charged that he forced a final vote even though whole sections of the treaty had not been negotiated at all. The draft statutes passed on the final day in Rome with 121 countries voting in favor and 28 voting against or abstaining. Included in those voting against or abstaining were countries representing 44% of the world’s population, including the US, India and China. Even so, William Pace, head of the NGO Coalition in Support of the ICC, said at last week’s meeting that the result in Rome was “nearly universal.” 

     The new campaign for rapid passage has a target date for final passage in the year 2,000, by which time 60 nations will be needed to issue instruments of ratification. In parliamentary systems this generally means the signature of a head of state and passage by a legislature. As part of this campaign “A Manual for Legislators” will be mailed to 30,000 parliamentarians the world over. American policy makers remain opposed to the treaty.

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