Today, the Chairman of the Riigikogu Foreign Affairs Committee Marko Mihkelson, the Chairman of the Constitutional Committee Rait Maruste and member of the Foreign Affairs Committee Margus Hanson met with Tiina Intelmann who had been elected the President of the Assembly of States Parties of the International Criminal Court in December previous year. Intelmann gave an overview of the tasks involved in this post and the work of the Assembly in general. In Intelmann’s words, the scope of work is wide. At present, the main attention is focused on African countries where helping of victims of crimes of aggression is the main activity, with support by a voluntary fund for assisting victims. Intelmann also introduced the practices of court proceedings, and circumstances relating to conviction and serving of sentence. Among other things, cooperation has to be done with the UN, many other international and regional organisations, and states parties of the Assembly as well as states avoiding cooperation. 120 states all over the world have signed accession agreements with this organisation by today. Intelmann stated that the European countries have mostly understood the necessity of cooperation and only problems of technical nature sometimes arise. With the aim of enlarging, cooperation in the Eastern European direction is planned in the near future. The Members of the Riigikogu who participated in the meeting stated that, with representation in such a post, Estonia had assumed a serious obligation for three years which has to be performed with full responsibility.

The Riigikogu Press Service