MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine first ICC prosecutor.

The recently created United Nations sponsored International Criminal Court, ICC, meeting in New York unanimously elected Argentine lawyer Luis Moreno Ocampo as its first prosecutor.

The ICC Assembly of States voted 78-0 for Mr. Moreno Ocampo who became world famous when he actively participated in the prosecution of Argentina's former military Junta members in the eighties.

The ICC, seated in The Hague with eighteen judges was created by the signatories of the Treaty of Rome in 1998, inaugurated officially last March and is the first permanent international tribunal established to try cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

ICC has jurisdiction over all those cases starting July 2002 in any of the 89 signatory nations of the treaty. Eleven of the 89 countries were not present when the voting of Mr. Moreno Ocampo. But ICC can only proceed when any of the 89 countries do not wish or do not have the possibilities to administer justice.

"This is a truly significant advance, the foundations for what we consider the most important institution of the Human Rights Declaration in the last half century", said Richard Dicker head of the International Justice program of Human Rights Watch, adding that the "prosecutor will undoubtedly become the most visible representative of the ICC".

However, Washington has vehemently opposed the creation of ICC arguing it could be used for political reasons against United States troops. To avoid this US has signed agreements with 27 countries exonerating US troops from claims before ICC.

Britain as the rest of the European Union has signed and adheres to ICC.

Mr. Moreno Ocampo will now have to decide whether to launch or not investigations into any of the more than 200 complaints received by ICC.

Mr. Moreno Ocampo practices law in Argentina and is a visiting law professor at Harvard University.