EU reaffirms support for ICC role in Dafur trials

BRUSSELS, Feb 21 (Reuters) – The European Union has reaffirmed its support for the new International Criminal Court to try war crime cases from Sudan’s Darfur region, a role the United States firmly rejects.

Inaugural ceremony of International Criminal Court in The Hague, March 11, 2003. (Reuters).

The move came a day before EU leaders meet U.S. President George W. Bush, whose administration strongly opposes the new Hague-based International Criminal Court, set up to try individuals for genocide, war crimes and human-rights abuses.

“The Commission of Inquiry recommends that those responsible (for war crimes in Sudan) should answer for their acts before the International Criminal Court,” EU foreign ministers said in a statement of the report by a U.N.-appointed Commission.

“In this context the Council (of ministers) reaffirms the EU’s constant support for the International Criminal Court.”

The Commission of Inquiry reported that the Sudan government and its militia allies committed serious crimes in Darfur.

The militia are blamed for killings, rape and pillaging in Darfur in which at least 70,000 people are estimated to have died and 1.8 million left homeless since fighting began in February 2003.

The ICC was established in The Hague last year.

Despite pictures and reports of displaced and brutalised villagers in Darfur that have prompted outrage around the world, the major powers on the U.N. Security Council differ over sanctions and how to prosecute those responsible for pillage, slaughter and rape in Sudan’s western Darfur region.

Many countries, including the 25 EU states, have said they want the ICC to cut its teeth by trying those accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity arising from Darfur.

The ICC is the world’s first permanent war crimes court, and is based in the same city as the ad hoc International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), established by a U.N. Security Council resolution in 1993 and due to wind up in 2008.

The U.N. Security Council is split over whether ICC should try cases from Darfur, with Europe, China and the United States pushing different options and diplomats seeing no easy solution.

Twelve of the 15 Security Council members have said they favoured sending perpetrators of atrocities in Darfur to the ICC with China and Washington voicing opposition.