June 6-7, 2008 | Paramaribo, Suriname

Since March 2004, PGA Board Member Dr. Ruth Wijdenbosch, MP has been leading the work within the National Assembly of Suriname to make possible the accession of Suriname to the Rome Statute. In July 2007, she formed a multi-party working group on the ICC to re-activate the process of accession to the Rome Statute. PGA's working group organized several consultations with the President of Suriname, the Ministers for Foreign Affairs and for Justice as well as other Parliamentarians.

To empower the members of the Working Group of Parliamentarians for Global Action in the National Assembly of Suriname (DNA), PGA organized a mission of Surinamese MPs to The Hague in November 2007 to meet ICC Vice-President Judge Blattman, and other officials at the Court, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Dutch Parliament and Officials from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The mission reinforced the multi-party commitment of MPs to promote the ICC Dossier in Suriname.

In order to concretize this long process of accession, as well as enhancing the role of Parliamentarians in thewhole region to ensure that the ICC system is truly universal and effective, members of Parliaments and Congresses from Latin America and the Caribbean gathered in Paramaribo on 6 and 7 June, 2008.

The Paramaribo Seminar was opened in the presence of Dr. R Ronald Venetiaan, and counted with the participation of the President of the National Assembly, the Vice-President of Suriname, the Minister of Justice of Suriname, the Vice-President of the ICC, as well as 46 parliamentarians from the region and Suriname and more than 100 representatives of Surinamese institutions and entities who discussed under three different panels, approaches, situations and challenges for the promotion of the ICC in the world.

As main outcome, attending parliamentarians from Jamaica, Nicaragua and St. Lucia have made important announcements on the advancement of the ICC process in their countries. Also, participating MPs have committed themselves through the Paramaribo Plan of Action to a series of steps to ensure the universality and effectiveness of the Rome Statute in Latin America and the Caribbean, at the OAS, the CARICOM and the ACP, and the ACP-EU Fora, as well as the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council.

The Paramaribo Seminar was made possible thanks to the European Commission, European Union and the Governments of Belgium, The Netherlands, Suriname and Switzerland.