Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you. Generally speaking, Canadian support is going to continue to be useful in terms of ratification, financial support, and other support to make the court well known, and in terms of complete cooperation at the request of the court—but for the time being, that is in the

Foreign Affairs committee  No one has immunity before the court; what counts is whether someone is alleged to have committed crimes. Once before the court, the person certainly does not have immunity, although states are never obliged to violate their own obligations under international law by surrendering

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you. You have mentioned financing, of course, which is important. The legislative work certainly in Canada seems to have been done to a large extent in support of the court. What I have observed in the past few years is that parliamentarians have an extremely important rol

Foreign Affairs committee  I've always maintained that the court, of course, does not have the responsibility and should not promote itself, because if we did, then the court would begin to have this political angle that I think it's very important we never have. The court, however, has the responsibility

Foreign Affairs committee  If there is something I never do, it's to speak on behalf of states, but I think it stands to reason that if you look at some situations of states that have not ratified the statute, you could see that their particular contexts may give them reason to think about it a little long

Foreign Affairs committee  I cannot answer that question. This is a question that relates to state policy. As a member of a judicial institution, I cannot address it.

Foreign Affairs committee  Whether they have an impact or not is not something I can comment on. The court is not an NGO; it is not a political body; it is not there to pass judgment on or speculate on what effects states' policies may have. It is there to administer justice. All we can do now, having rece

Foreign Affairs committee  The system has been designed in such a way as to give the necessary tools to the court in judicial terms. The statute of the court is much more developed than the statute of any other international tribunal, precisely because in the treaty that created the court, states wanted to

Foreign Affairs committee  Your question, as formulated, could be described as having a little political angle, but I can address it from another angle. The central theme that has been evoked about the court since its inception is the possibility that it could carry out politically motivated prosecutions;

Foreign Affairs committee  One hundred states have now ratified the statute. This is an exceptionally quick pace of ratification, if we compare it with any other major treaty. The Law of the Sea Convention, which did not affect the domestic system of states as the ICC does, took something like 12 years to

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much. As you accurately guessed, I can answer that question in general and not in specific terms. There have been so far no complaints about cooperation. The prosecutor refers in the reports on the Darfur situation to the Security Council of the UN—I think he's

Foreign Affairs committee  This is not specified in the statute. It will have to be addressed when a situation like that comes up.

Foreign Affairs committee  That is because there have been no complaints about non-cooperation, so the question has not risen.

Foreign Affairs committee  It is a good thing.

Foreign Affairs committee  You will understand, of course, that I cannot comment on specific situations, but I would make two points. One is that the criterion the prosecutor has been using to determine whether he starts an investigation is gravity. He is going to start an investigation where, for exampl