Judicial cooperation: investigation and prosecution for war crimes or crimes against humanity. Initiative Denmark

The committee adopted the report by Timothy KIRKHOPE (EPP-ED, UK) amending the proposal under the consultation procedure. It said that it was not appropriate to include terrorism in the scope of the initiative, as this was not the same as war crimes. Instead, the committee wanted the scope to include genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes as defined in the Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). It also felt that data protection was a key issue and included a new article on the requirement to respect the relevant international and domestic data protection legislation. It further amended the text in places so as to ensure that any exchange of information between Member States under the Decision should be governed by whichever rules provided the greatest protection of personal data, be they international agreements - such as the Council of Europe Convention of 28 January 1981 for the protection of individuals with regard to automatic processing of personal data - or national law. Another amendment called on the Member States to use the work of NGOs for the prosecution and to support the work of those organisations, on the grounds that, as bodies to which victims turn for refuge, NGOs often have information on the perpetrators of the crimes in question. Finally, the committee considered the appointment of national coordinators unnecessary since a network of contact points had already been established in a Council Decision. �