26 November 2015 | San Salvador The Hague/New York
Today, the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador voted with a majority of 44 votes for the accession to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), hence paving the way to become the 124th State Party to the only permanent system of international and domestic justice aimed at putting an end to impunity for international crimes.
This historic step follows the positive vote (6 to 3) by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Legislative Assembly on 24 November 2015. Four Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA) Members spoke in favour of ratification in the plenary debate. Dip. Karina Sosa intervened twice as Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee and for her political group (FLMN) to report on the enormous job done by Salvadoran Parliamentarians to join the Rome Statute.Dip. Mario Tenorio (GANA, Chair of the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee) stressed the non-retroactive nature of the Statute and the complementary character of ICC jurisdiction. Dip. Reinaldo Cardoza (PCN) urged Salvadoran MPs to ratify ahead of the PGA 37th Annual Forum, to be held in San Salvador on 30 Nov. and 1 Dec. 2015, in order to provide the best possible welcome to PGA Members from all regions of the world attending this event. Deputy-Speaker Guillermo Gallegos (GANA) underscored the protective and preventative mandate of the ICC and mentioned that only El Salvador and Nicaragua were the Central American States not yet parties to the Statute. ARENA, the largest political group, abstained on ratification on the basis of constitutional grounds, even if its Members expressed support for the mandate of the Court.
The global and the Salvadorian membership of PGA is particularly pleased with this ratification process, which is the culmination of the mobilisation of PGA Members for many years. Since 2002, PGA Salvadorian parliamentarians created multi-partisan support to fight against impunity for the most serious international crimes and to support accession to the Rome Statute.
PGA renewed its efforts in 2009 under the Presidency of Mauricio Funes as the ratification of the ICC Statute was finally included in the Government-electoral-platform in a decisive change of foreign policy for the Central American nation. Since then, a number of leading Parliamentarians and government officials from States Parties visited El Salvador to promote the ratification of the Rome Statute (for more information see our website).
Most recently, PGA organised a field mission led by PGA Members Dip. Berta Sanseverino (Uruguay), Dip. Manuel Garrido (Argentina) and Dip. Tucapel Jiménez (Chile), in July 2015, following the re-election of the Parliament, to sensitize newly elected Salvadorian Legislators on the system created by the Rome Statute and to rebuild support for ratification. This notably led to the reshaping of the PGA National Group in the Legislative Assembly, which served as a vehicle to advance the approval of the ratification bill. After this meeting, parliamentarians from 4 political groups from El Salvador participated in a special session on the ICC hosted by the Speaker of the Costa Rica Parliament. In September 2015, PGA organised a visit of a multi-partisan parliamentary delegation of El Salvador to the ICC aimed at addressing lingering political and legal concerns as well as generating political consensus among the different parties. After having met with relevant authorities, including ICC President Silvia Fernandez de Gurmendi, the MPs composing the delegation affirmed their commitment to work towards ratification, as their doubts and questions had been clarified. At the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Dutch Parliament, the Salvadoran MPs stated that the ratification could have been achieved within months.
PGA would thus like to congratulate its members and the parliamentarians who made this ratification possible, and highlight the unfailing support of former PGA Member Dip. Sigfrido Reyes, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly in the past legislature who led wholeheartedly the efforts towards ratification. The new Speaker of El Salvador, Dip. Lorena Peña, not only renewed the institutional commitment of her predecessor to the ICC process, but she also invited PGA to hold its Annual Parliamentary Forum on the role of Legislators in support of peace: The Forum will start in San Salvador on Monday 30 November.
The ratification of the Rome Statute by El Salvador sends a strong signal internationally on the importance to end impunity, while at national level it represents a guarantee of non-repetition as one of the means of reparation for victims of atrocities committed during the civil war.
