Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-11-16-Speech-3-547-000"
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"en.20111116.29.3-547-000"2
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".
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow we will vote on how the European Union can better support the International Criminal Court, or the ICC for short. This subject could not be more relevant at the moment. We only need to look at Libya and, in particular, Syria for this to be abundantly clear.
One thing I would like to know is: what actually happens, following sanctions like travel bans and frozen accounts, with regard to the war criminals and their accomplices? Recall what has just recently happened in Libya. A dictator, Muammar Al-Gaddafi, mercilessly allowed men, women and children to be shot down purely because they were demanding freedom, self-determination and justice. Thousands lost their lives, were mutilated or tortured to death in prisons. The same is happening now in Syria as a result of Bashar Al-Assad. With international support, Libya’s freedom movement was able to win the battle. In Syria, the outcome is still undecided.
Now the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, as it is unfortunately no longer possible to arrest his father, and the intelligence chief Abdullah Al-Senussi. We must give our very clear support to the following message: war criminals can no longer feel safe! They will be brought to justice. There is no safe haven left for them and their atrocities are not subject to any statute of limitations. All the victims of horrific crimes under international law and their relatives rightly expect that.
In order to be able to achieve these objectives, the ICC must also have the appropriate ability to act. That means that funding for the ICC must be ensured and improved. While the number of investigations and cases has been increasing, the budget has remained the same. It is good that the UN, in its resolutions on Libya, for example, instructed the ICC to take action. However, this is only possible with an increase in financial support. The witness and victim protection program also requires more funding. The EU and its Member States are one of the main pillars of the ICC and that is something that should be appreciated.
In this report, we have presented a few key demands. We call on the EU and the Member States to work to encourage more ratifications. Up to now, 119 states have acceded to the Rome Statute, including Tunisia in June. That is great and it is an important signal to the other states in the region. Turkey, as an EU candidate country, should follow this example as quickly as possible. Incidentally, we also expect this of major states like China, Russia and the US.
We welcome the Commission’s action plan and hope that it will start to be implemented very quickly. In this regard, it is particularly important that we apply a Europe-wide code of conduct with regard to the handling of people for whom an arrest warrant has been issued. After all, we in the EU must set an example to other signatory states. It must be clear that wanted criminals must not be received with military honours and Champagne, but dutifully handed over to the International Criminal Court. It is important for the EU to help those states that still do not have a functional legal system to develop one so that in future they can try and pass sentence on serious crimes themselves according to the criteria of the rule of law.
The case law of the ICC will be enhanced in future when, from 2017 onwards, the crime of aggression will be included in the list of criminal offences. This is a further necessary and important step towards a comprehensive international prosecution process. The signatory states are called on here to ratify the amendment and transpose it into national law quickly. With this report, the European Parliament can make its support for the work of the ICC unmistakably clear.
At this point, I would like to thank the shadow rapporteurs, the cooperation with whom worked extremely well, the secretariat and my personal as well as group colleagues. I hope that we, as the European Parliament, will be able to help to take justice a step further forward at international level. After all, anyone who commits a crime against humanity crosses a boundary beyond which he can no longer expect the forbearance or disinterest of the international community."@en1
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