This was the sentiment aired by the Italian Red Cross and other groups at a discussion Thursday on "International Jurisdiction and Humanitarian Law".

There, they said that tying hands of the Court and its prosecutor would be of little use when the point is to create an ICC whose existence is aimed at discouraging the flouting of international humanitarian law and rights violations.

"The ICC is being created because countries have failed to apply existing international humanitarian law. The court's task is to ensure that countries do their duty in the future," said Paolo Benvenuti, president of the Italian Red Cross' Commission for the Dissemination of International Humanitarian Law.

"Humanitarian organisations are at the sharp end of human rights violations, and the ability of the ICC to intervene when states are failing to prevent these is in no way up for discussion," he explained at the seminar, also organised with Amnesty International, the European Law Students' Association and the European Federalist Movement.

Benvenuti agreed that the ICC should complement national criminal justice systems, but must also be able to step in when states are "unable or unwilling" to investigate on their own -- and thus from the outset must have an ex officio prosecutor who enjoys strong political support and freedom from Security Council control.

The (so-called Singapore Compromise) proposal to give the five permanent Security Council members the power to interrupt the court's proceedings in a case for up to a year was "dangerous," Benvenuti explained. The formula is proposed as a compromise between those who want the prosecutor to be able to act only with Council permission, and those who want no control whatsoever.

The Red Cross agrees with the view of activists and other campaigners that the court should exercise universal jurisdiction over war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. But while the definition of genocide was uncontentious, that of war crimes and crimes against humanity were more "problematic", Benvenuti noted.

"The Red Cross believes that crimes against humanity should be defined by the ICC's statute in internal as well as international conflicts, and also in the absence of war. Moreover, the court should judge single as well as vast and systematic crimes against humanity," Benvenuti said.

He added there are precedents for war crimes to be admissible in internal conflict situations, such as the ad hoc tribunal for Bosnia-Herzegovina, although some countries like the Sudan, Turkey and Pakistan did not want this.

In in loco enquiries, Benvenuti said he saw no reason why states should not be obliged to give their consent. This has obviously been necessary in the case of the ad hoc tribunals in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. "Prosecutors are not local policemen - they need states to cooperate if they are to carry out their work," he said.

Domenico Gallo of the European Jurists' Association said he agreed with the Red Cross's position on the court, including that on the questions of aggression.

"The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 is the only unarguable case of aggression, and the crime is a secondary issue, compared to the drama that populations face in conflict situations," he said. He cited the bombing of the Ahmeriyya air-raid shelter on 18 February 1991, with hundreds of civilians, mainly children and women inside, as a clear breach of international humanitarian law. 

Gallo says states that do not sign on to the ICC should not be exempt from action by the international community. In that case, "Security Council intervention is one possibility", he pointed out. "Another might be commercial sanctions, as are applicable under the Marrakesh Agreement in 1994 (the world trade accord that created the World Trade Organisation). In this way states must respect the ICC's jurisdiction if they want to do business," Gallo said.

"Without coercive power, the ICC won't work but states must make it work: there is the Security Council," Benvenuti agreed. Much of the doubt about Security Council control over the ICC stems from the nature of the Council's membership. Thus, Pier-David Pizzochero from the European Federalist Movement said the proposal by Italy's ambassador to the UN to democratise the Council by rotating membership among Southern countries would increase the chances of an effective role for the ICC. Alison Dickens