22 January 1993
Rt Hon Lord Shawcross GBE QC
60 Victoria Embankment
LONDON
EC4Y OJP
Draft letter from the Secretary of State
Thank you for your letter of 15 January about my address at
Chatham House on 27 January.
I would like to answer the two matters you raise. Doing so by
letter enables me to give you a fuller reply than I could at Chatham
House. And of course, should your commitments not permit you to attend, at least your questions will have been answered.
You asked what difficulties we have with the establishment of
either a criminal chamber of the International Court of Justice or of
a separate international court of criminal jurisdiction. The former option is not one that we or other countries favour. It would require
an amendment to the UN Charter since the Statute of the ICJ is an
integral part of the Charter. Most discussion so far has focused on the question of establishing an international criminal court by an
international convention.
It is clear that there are substantial legal, political and
practical obstacles to establishing an international criminal court.
After over 30 years of inaction the International Law Commission has
in the last three years been actively addressing many of these.
I attach a copy of the Statement made by the FCO's Legal Adviser,
Frank Berman, during the discussion of that report in the Sixth
Committee of last years session of the General Assembly. You will see
that we do not object to an extension of the provisions of universal jurisdiction, but we are under no illusion that the establishment of