The annual Assembly of State Parties of the ICC (ASP) kicked off yesterday to discuss the management of the court and possible changes to the Rome Statute. While several issues are on this year’s agenda, including victim compensation and progress on ratifying amendments to define the crime of aggression, chief among the concerns of the […]
After nearly two decades of conflict, the Democratic Republic of the Congo makes a regular appearance in international news. The most recent chapter of the story is the conflict between the Congolese government and the M23 rebel group which started in April 2012. The back and forth fighting since then displaced more than 300,000 people […]
Just a few weeks after France launched an intervention aimed at rooting out Islamist Ansar Dine rebels in northern Mali, French and Malian forces retook the historic desert city without resistance and to the cheers of local citizens. However, the city’s ten months under Islamic rule still had consequences, not just for the people living […]
As war continues to rage on in Syria with no signs of abating, there are renewed calls for the International Criminal Court to investigate and prosecute any international crimes they find there. Earlier this month, Switzerland led a group of more than 50 countries appealing to the Security Council for referral of the situation to […]
Fatou Bensouda, newly sworn in as prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, is getting a lot of advice. Much of it is well-meaning. As the first African and the first woman to hold the post, Bensouda has rightly inspired much good feeling. For those who disagreed with her predecessor, one of her assets is, apparently, […]
When the International Criminal Court finally came into existence in 2002, it was lauded as a serious step towards universal justice and accountability for the worst international crimes. Ten years later, some of that excitement has worn off. Nowhere has that been more the case than Africa, the continent that has so far been the […]
Charles Taylor was sentenced to fifty years in prison today by the Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague. The former Liberian President was found guilty on eleven counts last month including acts of terrorism, murder, rape, sexual slavery, outrages upon personal dignity, cruel treatment, other inhumane acts, conscripting or enlisting of child soldiers, […]
Charles Taylor, the former President of Liberia, has been convicted by an international tribunal in the Hague for aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone. Ten years after the cessation of violence there, Sierra Leone, now a democracy, is still a dismembered place: its youth has been wasted, its resources […]
The Office of The Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court issued a statement today announcing that it is following developments in Mali after reports of possible crimes against humanity: Mali ratified the Rome Statute on 16 August 2000. Therefore, in accordance with Rome Statute provisions, the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction over possible war […]
As the world commemorates the Rwandan Genocide fugitives continue to evade justice. April marks the 18th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide in which 800,000 Rwandans, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were massacred. Eighteen years later and nearly 1,000 fugitives are still at large around the world. At an event in Nairobi, Kenya over the weekend commemorating […]
Person of the Year – Fatou Bensouda The face of international war crimes prosecution is now an African woman. Fatou Bensouda was chosen to succeed Luis Moreno-Ocampo as the International Criminal Court’s Chief Prosecutor in December. Bensouda has formerly served as Solicitor-General in Gambia, and as an adviser and trial attorney at the International […]
This is the second in a 3-part year in review series on war crimes around the world in 2011. E.C.C.C. – The Big Four Stand Trial In what has been called the most important trial since Nuremberg, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia commenced the trial of former Khmer Rouge leaders Nuon Chea, Ieng […]
This is the first in a 3-part year in review series on war crimes around the world in 2011. Ratko Mladic – Europe’s Most Wanted War Criminal In early April Bosiljka Mladic, Ratko Mladic’s wife told the media that her husband was dead. Less than two months later he was arrested in Lazarevo in […]
San Marino became the first nation to ratify an amendment proposed at the 2010 Kampala Review Conference of the Rome Statute, which governs the International Criminal Court. San Marino deposited its ratification of the amendment to Article 8 at U.N. Headquarters today becoming the first nation to ratify the amendment classifying the use of […]
Today is the world’s first International Criminal Justice Day. It marks the thirteenth year since the passage of the Rome Statute in 1998 that created the International Criminal Court. Today the I.C.C. has 116 state-party members. There are currently six active investigations into situations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Sudan, the Central […]