effective prosecution," Danish Ambassador Ellen Margrethe Loj said on Thursday. Japan and Philippines supported a referral to the court while Russia, Romania, Tanzania and Benin backed the ICC but said there was a need for council unity. Britain strongly backed the ICC but emphasized the entire council had to decide. The meeting came after Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy representative, told Reuters the EU might fail in its bid to refer the Darfur crisis to the ICC because of Washington's opposition and may have to settle for the Tanzanian option. France's U.N. ambassador, Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, said a referral to the ICC could "certainly not" be ruled out yet. He and other EU envoys apparently hope the United States might abstain on an ICC vote if offered an exemption from prosecution in Darfur, although there is little sign of this. It is also uncertain how China, which has veto power, would vote. All council members except China and the United States have signed or ratified the treaty establishing the ICC, the world's first permanent global criminal court to try individuals for genocide and war crimes. --SP 0135 Local Time 2235 GMT
