8 DAYS BEFORE THE END OF THE DIPLOMATIC CONFERENCE THE TRANSNATIONAL RADICAL PARTY PUBLISHES AN ADVERTISEMENT IN ITALY'S CORRIERE DELLA SERA AND IN THE INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE TO URGE THE CREATION OF THE COURT BY THE END OF THE ROME DIPLOMATIC CONFERENCE ON JULY 17.

Brussels, July 8, 1998 - 50 years have passed since the Nuremberg Trial; in these 50 years the world has witnessed 250 conflicts with over 200 million deaths. Now, after years of preparation, it is clearly time to decide. The international Community can no longer avoid or postpone decision making.

Declaration by Oliver Dupuis, Secretary of the Transnational Radical Party and Member of the European Parliament:

"Objections and reservations can and must be overcome. On the most important and controversial issues - from the relationship between the Court and the UN Security Council to the powers of the Prosecutor, from the relationship between national and international jurisdictions to the financing of the Court - there are solutions that can be quickly refined. On these issues, which take into consideration several countries' positions and which do not hinder the establishment nor the effectiveness of the Court, it is possible to gather a wide consensus.

Today, it is not only necessary, but also possible to finally equip the international community with an essential tool to establish a universal criminal jurisdiction, to create a Tribunal able to act in an independent way to prosecute the most egregious crimes and put an end to impunity insuring, at the same time, the appropriate safeguards for the accused, beginning with the exclusion of the death penalty."

The advertisement will be published on Thursday in the 'Corriere della sera' and on Friday in the International Herald Tribune.