Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-02-27-Speech-3-118"
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"en.20020227.7.3-118"2
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".
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, EU policy in the sphere of human rights and democratisation includes as an integral component the fight to ensure that serious crimes do not go unpunished and the struggle for justice at an international level. The statute of the International Criminal Court, concluded in Rome, represents probably the most significant achievement of international law since the establishment of the United Nations. The European Union has always advocated the International Criminal Court and continues to support this project vigorously, as demonstrated by the common position adopted by the EU in June 2001, in which we put the case for the agreed statute to enter into force as soon as possible and for the Court to be established.
The Commission unreservedly approves the start made in this common position, and I, too, wholeheartedly concur with what Ramón de Miguel has just set out in his capacity as President of the Council. The Commission welcomes the official statement in January 2002 by the Central and Eastern European countries associated with the European Union, as well as by Cyprus and Malta, countries also associated with it, and the EFTA countries belonging to the European Economic Area, to the effect that they associate themselves with the objectives of the common position.
The EU's budget is being used to support projects by non-governmental organisations, by means of which projects the whole world is to be made aware of the need for the Court to be established. Since 1995, then, within the framework of the European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights, some EUR 6.9 million have to date been spent on projects of this sort. EUR 2.1 million were made available in 2001 for three projects by non-governmental organisations in support of the International Criminal Court, which complement each other.
The ‘NGO Coalition for the Criminal Court’ project aims to facilitate civil society's involvement, in cooperation with governments, within the framework of the United Nations' Preparatory Committee for the Criminal Court, and promote and facilitate technical cooperation, so that binding national legislation can be enacted to implement the statute concluded in Rome once it is ratified.
The project ‘Parliamentarians for Global Action’ is engaged in a parliamentary campaign to ratify and effectively implement the statute of the Criminal Court and promote the rule of law, and the project ‘No peace without justice’ concentrates on campaigns to build public awareness and organise conferences in support of the Criminal Court.
In the May 2001 Commission communication on the role of human rights and democratisation in third countries, the combating of unpunished crime was ranked as a measure to be promoted as a high priority. The Commission will therefore continue to support the establishment of the International Criminal Court. EUR 5 million has been allocated to the special budget line for the International Criminal Court, which also includes the ad hoc courts for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and also the newly-established court for Sierra Leone, for 2002.
In 2002, the Commission will be concentrating its efforts on two aspects, firstly on increasing awareness of the Criminal Court, as part of which it wants to call on more than the necessary sixty countries to proceed with ratification, so that the statute can enter into force, whilst, at the same time, wanting to ensure that all areas of the globe are represented.
We want, secondly, to concentrate on the enactment of binding national legislation to implement the plan; this would cover the training of the specialised staff involved – judges, lawyers, law enforcement agency staff and parliamentarians – to enable them to contribute to the work of the Court. We can also make a limited contribution to covering the Court's main costs. Proposals as to how to realise these objectives will be invited in March this year."@en1
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