Madam Speaker, I certainly appreciate the question asked by the hon. member. There is no doubt in my mind that he has probably looked at the greater document, the United Nations Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the establishment of an International Criminal Court, the five weeks of meetings in Rome and some of the other things. I referred to the Israeli concern in terms of the politicization of the whole thing.
No, I am of the view that we need to prosecute and pursue these people to the full extent of the law. We need to go after them. We have to reach into these different countries and so on. I think we can do that by the ad hoc tribunals of the past. I am not sure what this is going to do that we have not already been able to do. If we cannot get access to those people by way of ad hoc tribunals, how will we be able to it by way of this?
I am also very much aware, and no doubt the hon. member is somewhat aware, that over the years we have had the aspect of victors' justice. I have never seen a situation historically. These bodies when they came together for prosecution, it was always from the perspective of the conquerors and not the vanquished. We look at some of this stuff within the International Criminal Court. If we were to go back to some of the actions that were taken on the part of the victors, they sometimes deserve due consideration but in the real world that probably will not happen. I have concerns for that reason as well.
There are different cultural backgrounds. Frankly, to load all that into a situation would on many occasions be an imposition of a western mindset or world view in respect to other countries.
I believe that we could address these things, as we have in the past, by ad hoc tribunals. I am not convinced that this is any improvement. In fact, I see all kinds of flaws and problems in terms of usurping our country's sovereignty.