Mr. President, Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I wish, on behalf of the Government of the Republic of Ghana to congratulate you on your unanimous election as President of this Conference and also to express through you to the Government of Italy our heartfelt appreciation and gratitude, for hosting this historic meeting and for the excellent facilities made available to the delegates.

Permit me also, Mr. President, to place on record our appreciation of the efforts and sacrifices of all those individuals whose contributions advanced the processes that culminated in this meeting. The role of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO's) in providing material and technical assistance to delegations during the sessions preceding this meeting, is equally commendable

The Ghanadelegation is committed to the realization of the objective which has eluded humanity for the greater part of this century. That objective, the establishment of an international criminal court, would be a fitting conclusion to one of the most tumultuous centuries in the history of mankind.

Mr. President, our thoughts and prayers should, at this time, be directed also to the memory of the countless individuals, who in the course of this century, have been victims of degenerate conduct, and unspeakable horrors which followed in its wake.
In doing so, it is also our moral duty to constantly remind ourselves that if the world community had acted collectively and in timely manner, without jaundiced political considerations, countless thousands of human lives might have been spared during the course of the horrors that have punctuated this century.

In establishing a Permanent International Criminal Court, the community of nations seek to grant justice, prevalence over impunity, and to provide a legal arid institutional framework which would hopefully function to deter future perpetrators from degenerate conduct, such as witnessed in the recent past in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and in the Great Lakes region of Africa.

Mr. President, the aforementioned, are noble objectives and they have the unconditional support of the Ghana delegation. However any collective effort to attain the objectives earlier mentioned, must as a necessary corollary, include equally urgent endeavours for a quick, effective and unbiased international response to crises, that contain the potential for the occurrence of genocide, crimes against humanity, and other such crimes failing within the jurisdiction of the international criminal court. Though such initiatives may not fall within the framework of the Statute of the International Criminal Court, they are very relevant to the concepts of justice, equality and international co-operation, which also constitute fundamental building blocks of the court we seek to establish.

Mr. President, Ghanaian soldiers made the ultimate sacrifice in Rwanda, at a time when the international community had been gripped by a feigned paralysis. Today we can only sigh as we pose the question, how many lives could have been spared, if the international community had acted promptly. With this in view, my delegation will urge the family of nations to focus critically on the need to establish criteria for a collective response to crisis situations, within the framework of standardized and streamlined existing mechanisms. Clearly, the establishment of an international court should not be regarded as an end in itself. Should this happen mankind may be besieged by even greater horrors.

At this stage, Mr. President, we will address issues arising out of the consolidated text of the draft statute by which we seek to establish an International Criminal Court. Ghana acknowledges that for the International Criminal Court to be a credible judicial institution, it must be based on a number of essential principles. It is towards that end we make the following comments. It is essential that the court be granted inherent jurisdiction over 99corell crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Any regime that permits a state to ratify the statute, and also grants that same state the choice of accepting or rejecting the jurisdiction of the Court, in respect of particular crimes can only lead to the establishment of a moribund court. The requirement of state-consent as a pre-condition for the exercise of jurisdiction would not in any way enhance the effectiveness of the court, and my delegation cannot support such a requirement.

It would also be equally vital to the credibility of the court, and of its universal acceptance, to have embodied in its statute, provisions that will guarantee its independence and impartiality.

The International Criminal Court, Mr. President, must not, as a matter of principle operate to supplant national criminal systems, nor should it be a supervisory body over national criminal systems. However, it should be able to investigate and prosecute in instances of inability of national systems to act, due to a breakdown of the system; or when there is manifest failure on the part of the competent state authorities to act.

Another cornerstone on which the court must be structured, and by which its acceptance would be measured, will be the extent to which it is sensitive to gender issues relating to the experience of women and children in situations of armed conflict, and the extent to which these are incorporated in the mainstream of the court's functions.

It is our firm conviction that the principles on which we seek the court to be based are reflective of the present state of international law, and also the reality of international society.

The primary imperative, the Challenge before this assembly, Mr. President, should not be the establishment of an International Criminal Court at all costs, but rather the creation of a universally acceptable International 7minal Court with a human face, capable of addressing the real issues on the ground and which has the confidence of both the accuser and the accused. A fully functional and effective court meeting in full, the demands of both victims and the international community for justice, and with the capacity to also facilitate the course of peace and stability. Such a court would provide the family of nations a unique opportunity to redeem this era from the persistent violations of international humanitarian law and to set a landmark for a new beginning.

Mr. President, Ghana is dedicated to this ideal and you can count on our co-operation in that regard.