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THE
Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC)
has urged Malacañang to transmit the instruments for
ratification of the 1998 Rome Statute that creates the
International Criminal Court, which handles war crimes,
genocide and other crimes against humanity.
Since
the Philippines has become a member of the United
Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, it should
demonstrate its commitment to international instruments
by ratifying treaties that include the Rome Statute of
the ICC, William Pace, convener of the CICC, said
recently.
The
Philippines is one of the 120 states that signed the
1998 Rome Statute creating the ICC. Consequently, the
Philippines became a signatory to the treaty on December
28, 2000.
“However, almost eight years after the Philippines
signed this important instrument, the government has yet
to ratify the Rome Statute so as to ensure the country
becomes a state party to the treaty,” said Pace in a
three-page letter to President Arroyo, a copy of which
was obtained by the BusinessMirror.
The
April 14, 2008, letter to Malacañang through Executive
Secretary Eduardo Ermita, seeks to reiterate the demand
for the executive body to transmit the instruments for
ratification of the Rome Statute for deliberation at the
Philippine senate.
The
letter was also signed by Evelyn Balais-Serrano,
Asia-Pacific coordinator for the CICC and former
party-list Rep. Etta Rosales of Akbayan, now the
cochairman of the Philippine Coalition for the ICC.
The CICC
is a global network of more than 2,500 human-rights
organizations advocating for the establishment of an
independent and effective ICC. It has headquarters in
New York and The Hague in the Netherlands.
Pace
said the treaty’s complementarity principle will
strengthen the government’s sovereignty as the court
recognizes the state’s prerogative to handle cases using
its own domestic judicial system and national
legislation.
“[It] is
only when the state is unwilling and unable to do
investigation and where appropriate, prosecute, does the
ICC have jurisdiction,” he explained.
The ICC
came into force in July 17, 2002 after the required 60
ratifications were met. There are only seven states in
Asia that ratified the treaty—Cambodia, Timor Leste,
Afghanistan, South Korea, Mongolia, Tajikistan and
Japan. The Philippines, Thailand and Bangladesh have
signed the statute but have yet to ratify it.
The
United States led seven nations that include China,
Israel, Sudan, Iran, Libya and Iraq that voted against
the treaty in 1998. The
US
has now gathered more than 100 bilateral immunity
agreements with its political allies to provide immunity
to American soldiers committing war crimes outside US
jurisdiction. The Philippines, one of the staunchest
political and security allies of the US, signed the
immunity agreement with America in May 2003, preventing
ICC prosecution of
US
soldiers committing war crimes on Philippine soil. |
