International Criminal Court

Lord Hague of Richmond Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)]

Today is World day of International Criminal Justice. I take this opportunity to reiterate the Government’s strong support of global efforts to tackle impunity and bring those responsible for the most serious crimes of international concern to justice. As part of this work I am pleased to announce that we have today launched a new strategy to support the work of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

We will work to ensure that the ICC retains its independence, delivers justice, increases its membership, builds more support for its decisions from states and from the United Nations Security Council, gains wider regional support and completes its work more efficiently.

We will help build a stronger, universal ICC, complementary to domestic jurisdictions, by being a strong advocate for the ICC in our diplomatic relations and encouraging states not party to the Rome statute of the ICC to consider becoming a state party, or supporting its work. We will address the issues of non-co-operation by working on this through our network of embassies in those states where it is a problem and by ensuring that we follow our own guidelines on essential contact. We will use our voice in the UN Security Council to promote the ICC where it has a role. And we will promote the role of international justice in UK policy.

It is our clear hope that through universality of the Rome statute and the development of domestic jurisdictions the ICC’s role will eventually become increasingly limited. Until then we will continue to support the ICC as it plays a vital role achieving justice for the victims of the worst international crimes.

I have placed a copy of the strategy in the Libraries of both Houses. It is also available on: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/foreign-commonwealth-office.