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(2004/C 78 E/0778)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-1841/03

by Charles Tannock (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(26 May 2003)

Subject:   The Commission's view that terrorism is not a human rights abuse

During the debate on the (Van Hecke) Annual Human Rights Report in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament last year the Commission spokesman asked for an amendment from the report to be deleted on the grounds that it was the official position of the European Commission that terrorist offences could not constitute human rights abuses but were ordinary crimes that should be tried in national courts.

This appeared to be consistent with the position of the European Council which refused to sign a common declaration with the Indian government at the EU-India Summit at New Delhi in November 2001 which described terrorism as ‘a grave violation of human rights’ after the intervention of EU legal experts.

This issue also raised its head at the time of the conclusion to negotiations over the birth of the International Criminal Court in the summer of 1998, when it was recognised in Annex 1 to the Final Resolution to the Final Act of the United Nations Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court that terrorist acts, by whomsoever they are committed, are serious crimes of concern to the international community, whilst regretting that no generally acceptable definition of the crime of terrorism could be agreed upon for the inclusion within the jurisdiction of the Court. After affirming in the same Annex that the Statute of the International Criminal Court provides for a review mechanism which allows for a future expansion of the jurisdiction of the Court, it was recommended that ‘a Review Conference pursuant to Article 123 of the Statute of the International Criminal Court consider the crimes of terrorism and drug crimes with a view to arriving at an acceptable definition and their inclusion in the list of crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court.’ That said, the failure to agree on a definition of terrorism notwithstanding, there is nothing in the text of the Statute which specifically requires the crimes listed to be committed by state actors or which specifically excludes terrorists or terrorist acts from the provisions of the Statute, whilst, interestingly, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch affirmed at a formal hearing of the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee last year that they regarded the September 11 attacks as ‘crimes against humanity.’

Is it still the Commission's view that terrorist acts do not constitute human rights abuses and does the Commission support the inclusion of a list of terrorist crimes within the Statute of the ICC?

Answer given by Mr Patten on behalf of the Commission

(24 June 2003)

It is the view of the Commission, and indeed the Union as a whole, that a distinction must be made between individual criminal acts and acts which are attributable to States. Only States are legally responsible under international law for protecting human rights. However, acts of terrorism, which are well-defined criminal acts, seriously affect the enjoyment of human rights.

The Commission would not wish to pre-empt future discussions within the Union and in the wider context on the complex question of the inclusion of a list of terrorist crimes within the International Criminal Court (ICC) Statute. The Commission notes, however that several leading human rights experts — including the former United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights Mary Robinson — have stated that Article 7 of the Rome Statute relating to crimes against humanity could encompass large-scale terrorist acts directed at civilian populations.

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