Schabas, president of the non-governmental organisation Hands off Cain, is leader of the Penalities Team at the NGO Coalition for an ICC (CICC). The use of the death penalty was also assailed this weekend at a meeting hosted by the religious community Saint Egidio in Rome. There, European Commissioner Emma Bonino, the director of the U.N. Office in Rome Staffan de Mistura, Amnesty International and Hands Off Cain launched an appeal to states to abolish the death penalty and to establish a moratorium on executions until 2000.

But while there is consensus that capital punishment has no place in the ICC, there remains a "sharp division of opinions" among delegations on other penalties, such as life imprisonment, length of sentences or the right of parole and process review for convicts.

To a great extent, such differences stem from conflicting views of the institution of law and the tribunal's scope. ''International justice is about searching the truth and reparations for victims, rather than the classic concept of retribution for the crimes committed, or even deterrence," Schabas said in an interview. Classic punishment and deterrence are not significant issues for the ICC, he added, because the kind of crimes the Court will be dealing with are not deterred by the threat of stiff penalties.

"Most people committing crimes such as genocide or war atrocities are prepared to die and they think they will win,'' he stressed. "Deterrence in this scenario is like expecting Hitler not to commit genocide for fear of a long imprisonment sentence,'' he said. Instead, Schabas pointed out, "The ICC is about helping victims invidually and as a society to heal and obtain reparations" for the crimes, not about revenge.

He recalled that ''human rights law has something to say: the principal goal of inprisonment is rehabilitation and that includes the possibility of parole.'' As an example, he pointed to this year's sentencing of Serbia's convicted war criminal Drazan Erdinovic to a five-year jail term by the ad-hoc tribunal on the former Yugoslavia, in the belief that he could be rehabilitated.

But while Schabas believes that criminals "must be given the opportunity to repent and express remorse", he says delegations agree that long sentences are to be an important feature of the Court's system of punishments, given the magnitude and scale of the crimes to be established in the Statute.

The working group easily agreed Tuesday on the issue of complementarity of the ICC regarding the death penalty - in other words, the ICC will not prevail over national laws on this punishment. Schabas said this is nothing new, being a long standing practice in international law. .

"Therefore, someone who is punishable both in the United States and Canada, will probably try to escape (from) the U.S., where there is a death penalty, to Canada, where it was abolished," he explained. "Likewise, if someone guilty of genocide is tried in the United States, he may get capital punishment, but if it is not tried by the local courts and the case is taken by the ICC, then he will not face the death penalty,'' Schabas said.

He said no serious attempt has been made by any state to have the death penalty included in the statute, in spite of statements by some Islamic governments and countries such as Trinidad and Tobago.