§ Mr. BakerTo ask the Prime Minister what position Her Majesty's Government took and for what reasons, at the International Criminal Court Preparatory Committee meeting held in New York in December 1987 in respect of(a) chemical weapons, (b) biological weapons and (c) nuclear weapons. [23408]
§ The Prime Minister[holding answer 19 January 1998]: At the Preparatory Committee meeting in December 1997, the UK delegation supported proposals to include within the jurisdiction of the new International Criminal Court war crimes under existing customary international law. For that reason, the delegation supported the inclusion of the use of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering; these included bacteriological (biological) agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict, and chemical weapons as referred to in the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. For the same reason, the delegation did not support the inclusion of the use of nuclear weapons.