ROME. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court (ICC) is what has not happened. 

Normally, at the end of the first week of international negotiations, clear battle lines have been drawn between the North and the South, whether the subject is women's rights, population, development, the environment or whatever else. But the ICC conference has resembled only a few other recent ones - notably the negotiations on the Landmines Convention last year - in presenting a remarkable series of alliances across the North-South divide.

The common interests at this conference often link Southern Africa, Latin America and most of Europe together in the "like-minded group" - which is a logical development given that many of the governments in those regions have waged very recent struggles for democratisation in the face of military rule, one-party states, apartheid and colonialism.

Perhaps more remarkably, common interests have also linked together nations opposed to certain principles of ICC judicial and prosecutorial independence, from India and Mexico to the United States and Russia. In recent days, Washington and Beijing have mimicked each other's points, as have India and Pakistan, and even Israel and its Arab neighbours.

Those confluences worry human rights activists, who have pointed in the first days of detailed negotiations to such developments as the insistence by Mexico to re-open ICC rules of complementarity with national legal systems; the tough US stance against a prosecutor who can initiate investigations independently; and the push by Arab states to link all crimes against humanity to war situations.

"It shows that some nations are prepared to play hardball," says Richard Dicker, associate counsel for Human Rights Watch. It also shows, however, that the ICC is clearly understood as a body which can permanently reshape the distribution of political power worldwide - a message which, as it is being comprehended, is pushing some governments to become strange bedfellows.

Consider, for instance, the insistence by Chinese delegation head Wang Guangya that the statute for the ICC be accepted by consensus rather than being approved simply through ratifications by interested nations. "The Chinese government holds that the universal participation of all regions and countries in the world is the prerequisite guarantee for the effectiveness and authority of the ICC ... The statute should be passed by consensus rather than by vote," Wang argued.

Now compare those sentiments with the following words: "It must be the world community that creates the Court. The Court cannot be the creation of a single group of nations. The Court must be built on the firm ground of international consensus, and enjoy international support." The speaker? US Ambassador (and Energy Secretary-designate) Bill Richardson.

What the envoys shared was the sensation that negotiations could slip away from them, in a venue where neither country has veto power and where the political influence of each is countered by widespread political support for the Court among the like-minded bloc. So Beijing and Washington begin to echo each other, emphasising the role of the UN Security Council - on which both have vetoes - and pushing for the ICC to require state consent before it can try cases.

Some of the basic positions of major blocs are already becoming apparent, even as some countries - such as France - shift their policies in sometimes murky ways. But in every region, recent history and politics clearly has influenced how the shape of the Court is conceived.

Arab States

Different Arab states were bound all along to perceive of the Court as an instrument to deal with different ills: Algeria, in its conflict with radical Islamists, would like a body to counter terrorism; Iraq could hardly be expected to endorse an ICC that would depend on the Security Council for recommendations.

Still, NGOs were surprised this week as many Arab states, in what one called a "clearly coordinated effort", insisted that there be a "nexus" between wars and crimes against humanity. Such a linkage could, of course, remove any number of non-wartime abuses - from crackdowns on Islamist or socialist oppositions to policies that subjugate women or discriminate against Kurds or other minorities - from the Court's docket. As a result, it was ironic that a ringing defense of restricting the ICC's authority only to "the most heinous of international crimes" and focusing on the dangers that "the investigative procedure may be used for political ends" came not from an Arab state, but from Israeli Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein.

Meanwhile, one of the strongest defense of prosecutorial independence in initiating investigations, and in insisting that "a grave crime of the sort we are considering is a grave crime, wherver it may occur and whoever may commit it" - in itself, a rebuttal to the Arab stance on crimes against humanity being linked to war - came from Jordanian delegate Waleed Sadi.

Africa

African nations have largely supported the Court, although the positions of some of them - such as Francophone nations which are often subject to considerable pressures from France - are in doubt. One NGO official worried this past week that some of those nations already were hinting at a greater flexibility in their positions - at a time before serious discussions had even begun.

The nations of Southern Africa have come together on pushing for an independent Court for some time now, and their common positions - no Security Council veto, significant 'ex officio' powers for the prosecutor - are well established. Over time, however, the nations have also become increasingly wary of accepting the Court if any nation or group of nations has a clear check on its work, whether through Council veto or through its early domination by a handful of signatories, many of which are expected to be from Europe.

"We do not want an international court dominated by Europe," South African Justice Minister Abdullah Omar argued last week. adding that neither the Security Council nor "powerful countries" should determine whom the Court is to prosecute. Europe, Omar contended, has had its own atrocities this century, and should not be in a position to try to teach other nations about human rights.

Europe

Many European nations have actually appreciated that message; yet if the Court in fact adopts many of the demands of the like-minded group, it will no doubt occur through common European pressure. Already the political maneouvering within Europe has yielded real dividends in steering Britain away from the other four permanent members of the Security Council to accept a more limited Council role over the Court's work. This week, even France subtly shifted its position, mentioning alternative means of determining Council authority, such as the British-accepted Singapore compromise. But French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine added a new wrinkle, contending that the ICC should have "automatic" jurisdiction over genocide and crimes against humanity, but not necessarily over war crimes, which require "a different formulation" because, he explained, "they could involve an isolated instance" of atrocities.

That possibility is also a major worry of the United States, whose defense establishment is convinced that the Court could engage in biased prosecutions of US troops deployed worldwide. Richardson emphasised that concern this week, and US negotiators have borne it out most conspicuously by fighting "tooth and nail" against a self-initiating prosecutor in the backroom negotiations, according to one source.

Asia and Latin America

Other alliances are equally contingent on current political disputes. Except for South Korea, which is in the throes of its own democratisation process, many Asian nations have been wary of the ICC, and have in common a desire to emphasise complementarity rules that favour national legislations.

India and Mexico, the former of which saw its own Security Council hopes come crashing down following its May nuclear tests, have heatedly disputed the Council's right to recommend cases. Most Latin American nations, on the other hand, are pushing for a strong Court, able to take on gender-based crimes, abuses against children and the like. What those stands will boil down to will become clear not in plenary statements, but in the negotiating rooms these coming weeks.