Clause 12 - Right to review of delivery order
International Criminal Court Bill [Lords]
10:45 am
Professor Ross Cranston (Solicitor General, Law Officers' Department; Dudley North, Labour)
The hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) says, rightly, that the amendment and his remarks echo previous debates. We have said that the United Kingdom has nothing to fear from complementarity. If we deal with our own nationals or residents and crimes against humanity—war crimes and genocide—on our territory, we have nothing to fear because the ICC will not have jurisdiction. We will not have to hand cases over to an extraterritorial body because we will deal with them ourselves.
The amendment would give the Secretary of State the power to decide whether there is a public interest dimension to the execution of the delivery order. As I have previously explained, that would be contrary to our treaty obligations: we would be in breach of our obligations under the Rome statute. It would frustrate the aim of part II of the Bill, which is to give effect to ICC requests in an expeditious and straightforward manner, and therefore I must resist the amendment.