The dream of creating a permanent court to try the world's most heinous crimes became a reality yesterday, hailed by many as a landmark human rights achievement but rejected by the US.
At a ceremony at UN headquarters, 10 countries brought the total number of nations to ratify a Rome treaty establishing the International Criminal Court to 66 -- six more than needed to bring the treaty into force on July 1.
The 10 nations -- Bosnia, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Congo, Ireland, Jordan, Mongolia, Niger, Romania and Slovakia -- deposited their papers all at the same time so the honor of being the 60th state does not go only to one country.
"A page in the history of humankind is being turned," said chief UN legal counsel Hans Corell to sustained applause.
The tribunal is expected to go into operation next year in The Hague, the Netherlands, a belated effort to fulfill the promise of the Nuremberg trials 56 years ago, when Nazi leaders were prosecuted for new categories of war crimes against humanity.
The new tribunal has jurisdiction only when countries are unwilling or unable to prosecute individuals for the world's most serious atrocities: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other gross human-rights abuses.
Cases can be referred by a country that has ratified the treaty, the UN Security Council or the tribunal's prosecutor after approval from three judges. But the court is not retroactive and cannot probe crimes committed before July 1.
The impetus to establish the court came after the 1992-1995 Bosnian war and the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The UN Security Council has established temporary or ad hoc tribunals to try individuals for atrocities committed. The new court would replace such tribunals in the future.
Wars have changed in the last 50 years, with civilians increasingly becoming the main target. Some 86 million men, women and children died in 250 conflicts around the world, according to the Coalition for an International Criminal Court, an umbrella group of 1,000 organizations.
During that period, more than 170 million people were stripped of their rights, property and dignity. "Most of these victims have been simply forgotten and few perpetrators have been brought to justice," the coalition said.
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