Today's Date:

France shares the views expressed in the statement made by the Danish Presidency yesterday on behalf of the European Union, which she fully supports.

"There can be no peace without justice, no justice without law and no meaningful law without a court to decide what is just and lawful under any given circumstance." It was in those terms that Mr Benjamin Ferencz, former prosecutor at the Nuremberg tribunal, expressed his faith in justice.

Such a profession of faith is in the tradition of the great humanists such as René Cassin, who was one of the first to think of a permanent international criminal court. It was to take half a century for the International Criminal Court to come into being.

Despite the frequent recurrence of crimes that corroded the twentieth century, the principal perpetrators were long spared, and still are to a great extent. While the mass murders have stirred our consciences, they have not sufficiently mobilized States. Intervention by the international community, often too late, has not saved the victims from their butchers. More than ever, civilians have become pawns in conflicts and are less protected than before.

Confronted with such barbarity, the international community recently acquired an instrument to punish criminals, prevent oblivion and – we must hope – deter potential criminals from carrying out like crimes.

We still do not know how the establishment of the ICC is going to affect the international order.

We have created a permanent institution in which the main actors will be a prosecutor and 18 judges representative of all the legal systems. All will be of different nationalities and independent of the States that elect them.

In 1998 in Rome, a large majority of the international community accepted the principle of the mandatory jurisdiction of the Court for crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes committed by a national of a State party or on the territory of a State party. The jurisdiction of the Court is very broad.

The International Criminal Court will be a decisive instrument, if we want it to be, against the impunity enjoyed by perpetrators of serious human rights violations in the world, violations that shock the very conscience of mankind and by their magnitude and atrocity not only affect conflict-torn regions but also threaten the democracies by repudiating the foundations of the rule of law.

Impunity is one of the factors that produces instability in international relations and a self-sustaining chain of violence. A lasting peace settlement or reconciliation process cannot be based on wilful ignorance or actual distortion of historical facts. There can be no viable process toward a settlement without recognition of the victims' right to remembrance, right to know and right to justice. It was essential for the victims to be given an autonomous place in the procedure so that international justice should not be detached from reality. The International Criminal Court will do that, and this is also unprecedented in international law.

Ladies and gentlemen,

We have travelled a long road to make the International Criminal Court a reality. But our task did not end on 1 July 2002 when the Rome Statute entered into force. We still have a crucial goal to reach: making the Court a universal institution.

Since the adoption of the Rome Statute, experience has shown that there is no problem without a solution when the political will exists. The preparatory commission succeeded in overcoming seemingly insurmountable differences: reconciling very different legal systems, finding a balance between the duty to do justice and respect for States' sovereignty, preserving the court's independence while taking into account the requirements of international relations. Recently the Security Council was also confronted with conflicting demands and was able to respond unanimously.

This should make us optimistic and convince us that the goal of the ICC's universality is attainable. How then do we convince the sceptics and hesitant, not to mention the opponents?

I am convinced that the Court, whose judges and prosecutor will be chosen in a few months, will help us by demonstrating that the mechanisms for balance, stipulated in the Statute, work and that the fears certain States have about the institution being transformed into a politicized, polemical instrument are groundless.

The International Criminal Court will not be a forum to which political differences can be referred. The Rome Statute is a balanced text which contains safeguards against using the Court for political ends, in particular the principle of complementarity which limits the Court's jurisdiction in the event of a proven failure in internal order. The Court will not substitute for States and it is not a court of appeal against decisions by national courts. It will intervene only if national authorities are unable or unwilling to bring perpetrators of crimes to justice.

As France did in Rome in 1998 and has done since, my country intends to play a constructive role in the process to advance the Statute. In Rome she sought the requisite consensus in order to reconcile the realities of international life and the demands of justice, working – sometimes without her role being truly understood and appreciated – for a viable and effective court.

From now on she will be seeking ways to help the Court become universal, in particular by continuing to engage in dialogue with non-party States to dispel their doubts or find solutions to the legal problems they may encounter in the ratification process, while respecting – it goes without saying – their obligations resulting from the Court's Statute.

In order for the Court to have full powers to act, States must not intervene unduly in its running. We, the States Parties, have a duty to preserve the integrity of the Statute so that the ICC can function in the way intended by the authors of the Statute and the 120 States that have signed the final act.

We must also be responsible for our choices. For the Court to be universal, its composition and functioning must be representative of all the legal systems and all nations, and ensure a balanced representation between men and women as stated in the Statute. We will have to bear this in mind when we come to choose the judges for the court.

France, for her part, will put forward a candidate for the position of judge, who will satisfy the high standards required by the Statute.

Lastly we must be aware of our obligations, in the first place our obligation to cooperate with the Court. Without the cooperation of States, the ICC will be a court only on paper. Even more than the international criminal courts, this court would be powerless if States failed to cooperate. Our accession to its Statute must not be simply a symbolic gesture but the expression of our absolute determination to take action against the most heinous crimes.

Ultimately, if each State were capable of prosecuting the crimes referred to in the Statute's preamble and article one, the ICC would have no reason to exist. That is the end goal for which we must strive.

I would like solemnly to reaffirm in this forum that the International Criminal Court must never be the instrument for preventing or punishing the worst crimes in lieu of States. We have to assume responsibility. It is up to us in the first place to prevent and manage the international crises that are accompanied by crimes that shock the very conscience of mankind. Yes, the Rome Statute must be ratified so that the ICC becomes universal but it must not serve as a pretext for the failings of the international community. Our political responsibilities remain what they have always been, and the existence of the Court serves only to highlight them even more./.