Like a mantra, time constraints were the prime and pragmatic reason given by delegations in explaining why they would not seek compromises on some of the most difficult issues of the conference, and instead leave them for the future.

For now, they told the Committee on the Whole throughout the whole day yesterday, they would rather concentrate on the areas in which an agreement is possible in the remaining days.

Clearly, almost nobody wants to be seen as obstructionist, or, worse, bear the blame for a failure of negotiations.

Delegates and NGO representatives were cautious in drawing any definitive conclusions from positions publicly stated by delegations Wednesday, but most saw a positive trend developing. One of them underlined the "flexibility" showed by Japan and China regarding issues such as the Security Council and state consent, which made them seem closer to the "like-minded" group than to the United States.

Issues likely to be dropped are crimes like terrorism, drug-trafficking, economic embargoes, attacks against United Nations personnel, most crimes related to gender and children or the use of nuclear weapons.  On a more political level, it looks like the so many and divergent conceptions of "aggression" will also leave mean that this thorny problem is left out of the statute.

Probably summarising the prevailing trend, Japanese ambassador Hisashi Owada noted that "there is little progress" on the matter of aggression and warned that "whether this (an agreement) is achievable or not is something we will have to consider very seriously."

The major issues that remain on the table for intense bargaining now going on are the role of the UN Security Council, the powers of the prosecutor, jurisdiction, state consent and what a European delegate called the French idea of having a Court a la carte, with countries opting in or out of crimes at will.

Still, the so-called Canadian proposal - officially known as the Bureau Discussion Paper - has already achieved much: all countries were forced to speak their minds around a specific set of issues. Thus, nobody can now reasonably argue that the conference will not produce a Statute by July 17.

The concrete expression of this political commitment will be the presentation of a formal proposal by the chairman of the Committee of the Whole, Philippe Kirsch, by Friday. The United States' head delegate, David Scheffer, clearly marked territory on Wednesday, declaring that there are no "realistic possibilities" to achieve a common definition of aggression and warning that the inclusion of nuclear weapons in the list of war crimes "will prevent the United States and others from joining the Treaty."

On the question of jurisdiction, a compromise on jurisdiction is in sight in the form of the potential adoption of a South Korean proposal that would give the Court jurisdiction conditional upon the consent of four types of involved parties.

On the Security Council's role in the Court, there is still standing a proposal tabled by Singapore, which will allow the Council to stop investigations by the Court but not require its permission to initiate them.

However, an agreement still looks distant on the Prosecutor's powers. One diplomat said that the United States was still adamant Tuesday night in limiting the Prosecutor's powers to initiate investigations propio motu. However, some see as an achievable compromise the formula of the pre-trial chamber option, as against arming the Prosecutor will full powers.

India, Syria, Iran, Cuba and Mexico were among a minority of countries that openly expressed their objections to language and contents of the draft Statute and its proposed compromise package, demanding the inclusion of the issues unlikely to elicit consensus.

One delegate, however, warned that some of these issues will not be easily dropped in exchange for nothing. In particular, she said, there is the issue of aggression, which is most important for many African states and others like Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The delegate complained that the like-minded countries have agreed to a number of substantial concessions in all areas, and are waiting to get some things in return. Alejandro Kirk