100 days for France to stop providing a safe haven for criminals against humanity

With less than 100 days to go before the conference in Kampala, Uganda which will review the first years of operation of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Amnesty International France is launching a national campaign to urge France to adapt its legislation to the ICC Statute without delay. This measure is already 10 years overdue. In June 2000, the French government was due to put a bill through Parliament for the adaptation of France’s domestic legislation to the Rome Statute - an essential measure for the Statute’s full implementation. Belatedly tabled in July 2006, and voted by the Senate in June 2008 in terms that effectively voided it of its content, the bill has yet to be included on the National Assembly agenda. “The majority of European countries have already harmonised their legislation. The French authorities must fulfil their commitments and debate the bill in the National Assembly before the Kampala conference” says Geneviève Garrigos, President of Amnesty International France. When the UN created the two international courts for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, France passed laws that made it possible to prosecute perpetrators of odious crimes committed in these countries if they were found to be present in France. But since the founding of the ICC, France has still not passed the law that would allow a similar mechanism to be set up for criminals coming from other parts of the world. Amnesty International France will therefore be lobbying members of parliament over the next 100 days to ensure that the bill is finally included on the agenda.

Aymeric Elluin is Campain Coordinator at Amnesty International France.

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March 8 marks the celebration of International Women’s Day (IWD). The CICC calls on governments to promote justice for women by ratifying the Rome Statute and by implementing its landmark gender provisions at the national level.

“Countries are strongly encouraged to bring their national laws in line with the standards enshrined in the Rome Statute, both in terms of criminalizing the serious crimes contained in the Statute and by assuring that laws make full cooperation with the Court possible,” said CICC Convenor William R. Pace.

The Rome Statute is a powerful instrument for protecting women’s rights. The Statute’s provisions by targeting sexual crimes represent a historic advance for international justice: the Statute is one of the first international treaties to extensively address gender-based crimes as crimes against humanity, war crimes, and in some instances, genocide. Specifically, the Statute recognizes rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced sterilizations, gender-based persecutions, trafficking of persons particularly women and children, and sexual violence as among the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole.

The Coalition and women’s organization around the world will continue their tireless efforts after today’s celebration to make sure that violence and persecution of women are treated as they are: serious criminal and humanitarian law violations.[/lang_en

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