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As a State Party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Fiji is attending the review conference which was opened on Monday 31 May in Kampala, Uganda is being scheduled for a two-week period.

The Fijian delegation is headed by the Attorney General & Minister for Justice, Mr Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum. He is accompanied by Mr. Luke Daunivalu who is based at the Fiji Mission to the United Nations in New York.

Apart from Fiji, there are two other Pacific Island countries that have ratified the Rome Statute. They are Cook Islands and Samoa. In total, 111 countries have ratified the Statute, with Bangladesh being the most recent State Party to have joined. Notably, three permanent members of the UN Security Council, China, the Russian Federation and USA, have not ratified the Rome Statute.

In accordance with the requirements of the Rome Statute, a review conference must be held seven years after its entry into force.

At the opening ceremony of the conference, statements were delivered by several high level officials that included the United Nations Secretary General, Mr Ban Ki-moon, the President of the International Criminal Court, Judge Sang-Hyun Song, former UN Secretary General Mr Kofi Annan, and the President of Uganda, Mr Yoweri Kaguta Museveni.

In his statement during the general debate on Tuesday 1 June, the Attorney General highlighted the actions which the Fiji Government had taken to implement the Rome Statute. When commenting on the achievement of peace and justice as vital objectives of the Statute, Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said that “power politics, be it regional or global, has undermined efforts to correct injustices at State levels. It is therefore imperative that we all as State Parties support each other in these efforts irrespective of political differences, with justice being the denominator”.

The review conference ends on Friday 11 June.

The entire statement can be read here.

(Kampala, Uganda, Thursday 3 June 2010)