MOSCOW, October 20 (RIA Novosti) - Amnesty International is expecting the next Ukrainian parliament to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) that would allow for an international investigation of humanitarian crimes in the country, the director of the human rights group's office for Ukraine said Monday.
"The next demand will probably be addressed to the newly-elected Verkhovna Rada [Ukrainian parliament] – this is the ratification of the Rome Statute, which must be carried out as soon as possible," Tanya Mazur was quoted as saying by the UNIAN news agency.
Amnesty International made the same request in September but received no response from Kiev.
An early parliamentary election in Ukraine is scheduled for October 26.
Mazur added that Kiev also needs to ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and to execute it at a national level.
The Amnesty International Ukraine head also noted that the country needs to ask the United Nations to provide technical aid and expertise for the protection of people in eastern Ukraine.
In September, Amnesty International said that Ukrainian authorities are responsible for the actions of the pro-Kiev Aydar volunteer battalion, which the human rights organization said had been involved in widespread human rights abuses.
The Rome Statute, which came into force in 2002, established the International Criminal Court and its headquarters in The Hague, entitled to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity in case national courts are unwilling or unable to properly carry out an inquiry. Ukraine, Russia and the United States are among the nations that have signed but not ratified the agreement. However, in April, Ukraine accepted ICC jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed during mass protests in the country between November 2013 and February 2014.
