MPs urged to accelerate Ukraine’s membership in International Criminal Court

Amnesty International in Ukraine urges the Ukrainian lawmakers to take all the necessary measures for the immediate ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) by Ukraine.

The human rights activists remind that the ratification of the Statute has come under threat after President Petro Poroshenko submitted to the Parliament the draft law №3524 on the constitutional amendments related to judiciary. The transitional provisions of the document provide for a delay in ratification of the Rome Statute for at least three years. The reasons for this step are not properly founded.

According to the human rights activists, the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Foreign Affairs unanimously decided to initiate the collection of signatures under the proposals to the presidential draft law No. 3524.

“Part six of Article 124 of the Constitution shall read as follows: ‘Ukraine shall recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court under the terms defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.’ In paragraph 1 of Section II “Transitional Provisions” of the bill the words “except for Part six of Article 124 of the Constitution of Ukraine in the version of the present Law, which comes into effect after three years upon the day following the day of publication of this Law’ shall be eliminated and the Section shall be supplemented with a new paragraph as follows: ‘Part six of Article 124 of the Constitution of Ukraine in the version of the present Law shall enter into force upon ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine,” read the proposals to the draft law.

The lawmakers are urged to put their signatures under these amendments and to vote for them.

The human rights activists remind that ratification of the Rome Statute is Ukraine’s international obligation in accordance with Article 8 of the Association Agreement with the European Union.

Earlier, the representatives of the President reported that Ukraine could not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction now because of the hostilities in Donbas. However, the Ukrainian human rights activists have repeatedly pointed out that Ukraine has already recognized the jurisdiction of the ICC by the second appeal of the Verkhovna Rada.

Ukrainian expert on international criminal law Mykola Hnatovsky drew attention to the fact that Ukraine was losing additional rights without ratification of the Rome Statute and stressed that the postponement of the ratification had no practical sense.