Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

I regret the Minister said it is not appropriate to deal with this while we have the opportunity. It means we will have to return to this in the future. As we know the agreed definition of crimes of aggression and have some idea what will be signed into international law we should take this opportunity to be one of the lead countries on it. My amendment No. 10 is similar. I recommend that where we understand where international law is going we pre-empt it and address those concerns now rather than later and that we become the lead country and set the standards as much as we can. We should then try to persuade other countries to address and take on board the concerns Amnesty International and I have raised with everybody in this House who has an interest in the International Criminal Court Bill and who encouraged the Government to bring this forward as quickly as possible. We have delayed it. Had we got to grips with this issue earlier we might have the luxury of saying, as the Minister does, that it is not appropriate now, but the concept and definitions I am dealing with and am trying to incorporate into this Bill are more developed than they were when the Rome Statute was signed eight years ago. We have developed beyond that and eight years later we are still dealing with the 1998 definitions while we should be dealing with today's definitions.

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