29 Oct ICC +1
29.10.08
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4 Comments
The Czech Republic is set to become the 109th member of the ICC. The lower house of the Czech parliament recently voted 140-6 in favor of ratifying the Rome Statute, which the country signed in 1999. The upper house voted to ratify the Statute in July.
Kudos to the Czech Republic!
Yes, it is a great news. Yet, the ratification process still needs a signature of the president. And he is well-known for his, to put it mildly, scepticism towards ICC. So the signature is not automatic. But we all hope for the best. The Statute was ratified by a qualified 3/5 majority (because of constitutional issues) by the Parliament so lot of people think that he will not go against the constitutional majority.
Jan,
Thanks for commenting. I was curious about the signature issue, but couldn’t find anything on it.
Kevin
Having in mind, that US is going to build in Czhechia anti-missile defence shield radar, Article 98 agreement will come into play soon?
I have not heard anything about Article 98 agreement yet. The danger might not be that great- to my knowledge from the EU states only Romania and Bulgaria have these agreements. There is already a final text of the proposed bilateral
<a href="http://www.psp.cz/sqw/text/orig2.sqw?idd=30465">SOFA</a>agreement (English text at the end of the document). It is a bit ambivalent on the issue of criminal jurisdiction, but in any case it applies only to the radar personnel and their families.