KUALA LUMPUR: The government will not be ratifying the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Deputy Foreign Minister Datuk Kamarudin Jaffar told the Dewan Rakyat today.
He said the Perikatan Nasional government will follow the previous Pakatan Harapan administration's decision to not ratify the Rome Statute, which allows prosecution of those accused of genocide and war crimes.
"If the previous government, which believed that it had the mandate of the public to withdraw (from signing), of course, the current government will ensure that our next course of action will surely be based, among others, on what the majority of the people wanted," he said.
According to Kamarudin, the PH government had decided to withdraw from the Rome Statute on April 5 last year, and following that decision, Wisma Putra had issued a notice of withdrawal to the United Nations (UN) secretary-general António Guterres as the depository of the treaty on April 29, 2019.
"On May 15, 2019, the UN confirmed Malaysia's withdrawal from the Rome Statute, which was enforced on April 29, 2019, which is the same date of Malaysia's withdrawal from the Rome Statute, and officially removed from the signatory list," he explained.
Kamarudin was responding to a supplementary question by Maria Chin Abdullah (PH-Petaling Jaya) who asked the Foreign Ministry to explain the actions taken to raise awareness on the Rome Statute.
She also asked on other international channels available for Malaysia to use to fight crimes against humanity and to bring justice for causes such as the Palestinian and Rohingya plights.