EC provides cash for international criminal court

The European Commission is donating ECU390,000 - around £266,000 - towards the establishment of an international criminal court at a Rome conference in July.

The money will go the charity No Peace Without Justice which has been fighting for the adoption of the court.

Commissioner Hans van den Broek said: "Societies shattered by the nightmare of war can not resume normality unless the guilty are brought to justice. We have seen this in Yugoslavia, in Rwanda and other places.

"The European Union therefore strongly supports the UN's efforts to set up a permanent criminal court."

The EU is also donating ECU520,000 to the World Federalist Movement to allow it to bring charities from developing countries to the Rome Conference.

A sum of Ecu238,330 will be provided by the EU to help fund the establishment of a library and technical support at the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at the Hague.

The city of Nuremberg in Germany, where the trials of Nazis were held after the Second World War, has applied to house the international criminal court that the Rome conference aims to establish.

Although the UN supports its establishment, individual member countries are not agreed on the scope of its jurisdiction.