South Korea (Republic of Korea): Prevention of grave crimes, international justice
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One of the most important step towards finding international justice to grave human rights violations and grace crimes has been achieved through the establishment of International Criminal Court (ICC) on the 1 July 2002. NGOs played a key role in brining this court to a reality, lobbying many governments to support it. However, there are very few ratifications from the Asian region thus undermining universal representation in the Assembly of State Parties of ICC.
There is an urgency as the year is nearly coming to a close, and the new International Criminal Court slowly coming into full being. The end of the year marks the end of the nomination period for judges, which were supposed to represent all the legal systems of the world. Unfortunately, the lack of ratifications from Asia prevents our region from being fairly represented in the CourtÂ’s nomination process.
Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), an independent regional human rights organization based in Hong Kong SAR which is also the East Asia sub-regional focal point of the NGO Coalition for the ICC (CICC), have launched an on line petition and urges you to sign this online petition to appeal to President Kim Dae Jung, leaders of main political parties and national assembly persons of ROK to support the ratification bill for the ICC statutes to be presented to the parliament of ROK around 4 or 5 November 2002.
Ratification of the International Criminal Court (ICC) statutes by ROK will be a significant step in demonstrating the ROK’s support for this important and independent legal body which will work towards seeking justice to victims as well as preventing serious crime such as war crime, genocide, crimes against humanity and crimes of aggression. Korea had suffered a lot in the past from such crimes and learning from that bitter past, we should do our best not to repeat that past in our future. In such spirit ICC will function as a deterrent to such crimes as well as assisting victims of such crimes in future. It is also clear that the ICC as a responsible, independent and effective institution, represents an extension of the concept of the rule of law over the rule of force, a concept embodied at the regional level by the institutions of the European Union, the Organization of American States, the Organization of African Unity, the ASEAN, SAARC, among others.
There is an urgency as the year is nearly coming to a close, and the new International Criminal Court slowly coming into full being. The end of the year marks the end of the nomination period for judges, which were supposed to represent all the legal systems of the world. Unfortunately, the lack of ratifications from Asia prevents our region from being fairly represented in the CourtÂ’s nomination process.
ROK will be able to actively participate in all aspects of the ICC by ROK ratifying the ICC statutes by 4 or 5 November 2002.
ROK’s ratification will further encourage other Asian states to follow this good example and work towards more ratifications by many other Asian states.
By signing this on-line petition, as an automated process, you will be sending a number of appeal e-mails to the president of ROK, National Human Rights Commission or ROK, political party leaders and key national assembly members.
How to sign the petition:
* If you have web access:
The link to the petition is: http://ahrchk.net/ua/skorea_icc/
** If you do not have web access: Please send an e-mail to: sanjeewa@ahrchk.org with following information:
Name:
Organisation (if any):
Country:
E-mail address:
Please also share this appeal with your friends as much as possible to rally more signatures and through that sending e-mail appeals to above persons.
Thank you.
AHRC Urgent Appeals Programme
Please contact the Urgent Appeals coordinator if you require more information or wish to report human rights violations.
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AHRC Urgent Appeals Programme
Asian Human Rights Commission
Unit D, 7th Floor, Mongkok Commercial Centre,
16 – 16B Argyle Street, Kowloon, HONGKONG
Tel: +(852) – 2698-6339
Fax: +(852) – 2698-6367
E-mail: ua@ahrchk.org
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