Mr President,
Distinguished Representative of the Secretary-General,
Distinguished Delegates:

I wanted to be here today, first and foremost to bear witness to and recall the importance of the exercise on which you have been engaged over the past few weeks: to define the Statute of an International Criminal Court. I believe that it is fair to say that not since the adoption of the Charter in San Francisco has the 'United Nations set itself such an ambitious, but inescapable goal: ambitious and unprecedented on account of the moral, more than the political, value of what is at stake, and in terms of such a vast participation of member states, and the keen involvement of public opinion in all our countries.

I have no doubt that, irrespective of any interests or stances that you legitimately represent on behalf of your governments, each. one of you is conscious of your own personal responsibility towards history and the whole world. None of you can fail to sense that what is at stake is the legitimacy of the United Nations itself, and its capacity to lay down rules and principles that are consonant with the times and appropriate to the far-reaching changes that have been taking place in recent years. You certainly also feel the responsibility you bear towards the future generations, so that they can enjoy their individual and collective rights and guarantees without having to pass through the tragic trials that have been imposed upon the generations that have preceded them in the present century.

This is another reason why we believe that, in this concluding phase, it is essential for the Secretary-General of the United Nations to be present in Rome, by virtue of his authority and of his own personal standing, and the contribution that he is capable of making to bring your deliberations to a successful conclusion, as recent events have demonstrated.

Difficulties have understandably emerged. You are endeavouring to consolidate an international community, underpinned by the primacy of the individual, of the person. In some cases times are forcing us to supersede the historical boundaries of sovereignty linked to the nation states. The institution of the Court will prevent national sovereignty being used as a convenient shield behind which violence and outrage are committed, backed by all the guarantees that Conference is negotiating: guarantees relating to the procedures, rules and powers, which are especially necessary, relating as they do to the powerful prerogatives of States. To protect human rights, they require an international jurisdiction to be superimposed on national jurisdiction, moving away from guarantees within the State to guarantees against the State. The court is opening up the way to a more comprehensive legal safeguarding of human rights. The scope and the intensity of the debate on human rights are increasing all the time. So broad is the scope that it now involves every nation in the world, in a spirit of globalisation. So intense is the debate that it is at the top of agenda of the international institutions, beginning with the most universal of all of them.

The vital balance that has to be struck between national prerogatives and international demands cannot, however, be at the expense of the independence, authority and effectiveness of the institution that is about to be brought into being here in Rome.

This is something that our consciences will not permit to happen. We cannot allow it to pass before the eyes of an international community which, in the age of global and instantaneous communication, is living in an unprecedented climate of interdependence and mutual knowledge and familiarity. The wheel of history, after the enforced peace of the cold war, has resumed its course along a path strewn with conflicts, new forms of intolerance, and political, ethnic and cultural rivalry which, even here in the heart of Europe, we believed had been buried once and for all. Conflicts are flaring up in the most perverse forms. Conflicts which ignore even the traditional rules of war, and are revealing the existence of undreamed-of reserves of ferocity and brutality. Events that are constantly before the eyes of all, and which appeal to the sensitivity of each of us.

You will find these emotions and these expectations in the public event that is being staged this evening. It is certainly not intended to be collective lack of confidence in you. On the contrary, it is intended to be an encouragement to bring your work to fruition and to assess its scope and impact ranging well beyond the narrow confines of these negotiations.

The debate is now at a crucial phase, with success or failure hanging on a thread, depending for its outcome on the constructive attitude of everyone involved. An irrepressible demand for justice has run through so many conflicts from Nuremberg to the former Yugoslavia. But in all instances this demand has only been partially satisfied largely imperfectly. Only now is it possible to find a suitable response to the lesson we are being taught by the century which is drawing to its close.

I am, urging you, on the eve of crucial decisions. The time to reflect and to mediate is about to run out. As in every other international negotiation there are some countries - and this includes Italy - that have pursued a highly ambitious project right from the beginning. We have done so, taking account of the expectations of public opinion, and the challenges of the new century. But we have also realistically understood the need to take account of the reasons of others, the need to seek out acceptable compromise while not destroying the substance of such an important innovation. This has been the spirit in which we have defined the crimes falling within the scope of the court, the complementarity between national courts and the International Court, the powers of the Prosecutor to institute proceedings at his own initiative, and the relationship between the court and the Security Council.

At this point I would like to express my sincere thanks for all the patient mediation that has been carried out so far to produce a draft document reflecting the contribution made by everyone.

But next Saturday in the Capitol we shall be signing the Statute of the new Court. It must be document that will not be subject to amendment that states will subsequently be required to ratify according to their own national procedures, hopefully doing so promptly. A statute, and not a Final Act of the work carried out over the past five weeks.

Even though the statute will eventually have to be ratified according to the rules of each country, it must nevertheless be signed by the representatives of all the countries here in Rome, to ensure that it is evidently the contribution of all.

Only in this way can the ceremony on the Capitol on 18 July mark a fundamental stride forward in the history of the United Nations, for a new form of international co-existence.

We dare not let this opportunity slip from our grasp. It will be the last chance we shall ever have! The world would never forgive us.