Human rights activists on Tuesday laid stress on the need for ratifying the Rome Statute. 

Stating that the parties are nervous about being dragged into certain cases and facing charges, constitution experts, advocates and rights activists while speaking at a programme organised by the Informal Sector Service Centre (Insec) blamed political parties for the delay in the ratification of the Rome Statute. 

Nepal is yet to ratify the Rome Statute because those in power are not willing to do so, they said. 

Lawmaker Radheshyam Adhikari, who is also a senior advocate, alleged that parties were averse to ratification of the Rome Statute as they “believe in violence”.

“Parties are afraid of ratifying the Rome Statute because they think they would be dragged into human rights abuse cases as they believed in violence,” he said. 

Attorney General Raman Kumar Shrestha stressed on ratification of the Rome Statute for strengthening domestic criminal justice system. 

He also laid emphasis on the protection of witnesses. 

Madhav Prasad Poudel, chairman of Nepal Law Commission, said the Rome Statute becomes essential when the domestic criminal justice system is weak. However, he argued that Nepal is ahead in guaranteeing the human rights. “We are ahead in guaranteeing human rights compared to other countries in South Asia,” he observed. 

Constitution expert Surya Dhungel spoke of the need of creating awareness from the local to the political level for the ratification of the Rome Statute. 

Charan Prasai, president of the Accountability Watch Group, Subodh Raj Pyakurel, president of Insec, also said political leaders fear that they would be indicted if the human rights laws were made strong enough.