India, on Monday, at the 81st Session of the UNGA Sixth Committee on Agenda Item 79, delivered its official statement focusing on the ‘United Nations Conference of Plenipotentiaries on Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Humanity.’ R. Mythili, Counsellor (LA), presented India’s perspective during the session, outlining key principles for international legal frameworks.
India emphasized the primary responsibility of States to prevent, investigate, and prosecute crimes against humanity through national legal and judicial mechanisms. Building on this, the statement called for the primacy of territorial and national jurisdictions, respecting State sovereignty and the principle of non-interference in internal affairs.
Furthermore, India stressed that any new convention must complement, not duplicate, existing international legal mechanisms, opposing the simple transposition of existing international regimes into a new convention. The intervention also called for terrorist acts meeting the requisite threshold to be appropriately reflected within the framework of crimes against humanity.
Concluding the address, India underscored the need for broadly accepted principles of international law, stronger national capacities, and transparent and inclusive negotiations.
