Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-10-23-Speech-3-228"
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"en.20021023.5.3-228"2
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"Mr President, I should like to answer the three questions together. I would first of all, however, emphasise that the Council’s conclusions concerning the International Criminal Court do not encourage the signing of bilateral agreements on immunity. It is emphasised that account must be taken of existing agreements between the United States and the individual Member States.
With regard to which Member States may possibly enter into immunity agreements with the United States, I am not, unfortunately, at the moment in a position to provide information, but I should like to answer questions about Romania’s bilateral agreement with the United States, signed on 1 August 2002. In that connection, I should like, on behalf of the Council, to draw attention to the common position, adopted on 11 June of last year and amended on 20 June of this year. It was a position supported by the candidate countries. The Council remained in close contact with the candidate countries during all of the preparatory work on the position, and the Council intends to maintain these contacts in order to keep the candidate countries fully informed about further developments. The Council has noted that Romania has still not ratified the agreement in question and hopes that it will take account of the position established by the EU after the agreement had been entered into.
In our view, many of the American reservations can be disposed of on the basis of the existing agreements. It will be up to each individual Member State to assess whether its bilateral or multilateral treaty relations with the United States can be considered adequate to make allowances for the American requests.
If a Member State were to find it necessary to change existing agreements or to enter into a new agreement with the United States, this would be done on the basis of the EU’s guiding principles. If, in their bilateral contacts with the United States, the individual countries keep within this framework that has been set out, the Court will not be undermined. We would also make it quite clear that, if states that are parties to the International Criminal Court were to enter into agreements such as those now proposed by the United States, this would be incompatible with their obligations in relation to the statutes of the Court.
In accordance with the EU’s guiding principles, any solution should include suitable operational provisions that ensure that people who have committed crimes that come within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court do not enjoy immunity. Legal proceedings must therefore be taken against them, and they must, if necessary, be punished. Such provisions should be able to ensure that suitable investigations take place and that, if there is sufficient evidence, the national authorities take legal proceedings against people at the request of the Court.
This guiding principle ensures that people are held accountable if they have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide. Moreover, they will be brought to justice irrespective of whether they are Americans or Europeans. The EU and the United States are agreed that individual responsibility shall apply in the case of the most serious crimes affecting the international community. For many years, the United States has, in close cooperation with the EU, adopted a leading role when it comes to setting up international criminal courts with a view to bringing criminal prosecutions for such crimes.
Another guiding principle is to the effect that new agreements should only cover people who are not citizens of a state that is a party to the Court. Moreover, the EU has carefully defined the category of people to whom this might apply. It is stated, however, that certain persons do not come within the Court’s jurisdiction because they have immunity under international law. Apart from such cases, any solution should, however, only cover those who, because they have been sent there by the sending state, are resident in the country that is being requested to hand someone over to the court. This is in accordance with the Rome Statute’s very narrow definition of persons who should be included under immunity agreements.
If the alternatives are looked at, the EU approach we have just described is the best way of defending the International Criminal Court. Any other solution would have caused cracks to appear in the EU’s strong support for the Criminal Court and would have weakened the Court. A simple rejection of the American proposal would, however, have had very negative consequences for transatlantic relations, and it would have endangered the absolutely vital American commitment to worldwide peacekeeping operations.
If a common EU position had not been established, it would have caused irreparable damage to the Court. In that connection, I should like to mention that the United States has already entered into bilateral agreements with 12 countries that are unable to take a stand on the EU’s position. If the EU Member States and others were to be encouraged to enter into bilateral negotiations with the United States without strong EU agreement and without clear criteria governing who is to be covered by the resulting bilateral agreements, the outcome would be a multiplicity of bilateral agreements, and that is something which would most certainly undermine the court.
With regard to what EU citizens, NGOs and legal experts think, I should like to emphasise that the Council did not discuss this subject in a vacuum and that it certainly did not reach the stated outcome in a vacuum. The Council’s conclusions are based upon extensive consultations between the Member States and upon valuable contributions from the Council’s legal service and from the Commission. The Council has also taken account of the points of view expressed by the NGOs affected. Throughout the whole process, there have been contacts with third countries that are parties to the Court, and the Presidency has also had exploratory talks with the United States. It goes without saying that the Council has also taken full account of the views expressed by the elected representatives in the EU, both in the national parliaments and in the European Parliament."@en1
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