ICC Update

Here’s what’s been happening in the world of the ICC:

• The UN Mission in the Congo, the ICC, and the governments of Germany and the DRC are working to transfer Ignace Murwanashyaka — the FDLR leader whose situation I discussed last week — to the ICC to stand trial. Their efforts are bound to further antagonize the Rwandan government, which has already expressed its desire to prosecute Murwanashyaka, who is Rwandan Hutu.

• Uganda’s Parliament has passed a law that authorizes the exclusion of certain individuals — primarily high-level officers in the Lord’s Resistance Army, such as Joseph Kony — from government amnesty. The Minister of Internal Affairs will submit a list of names to the Parliament for approval. The law proved quite contentious, with numerous MPs insisting that it would undermine efforts to negotiate a peaceful solution to the LRA insurgency.

• The Pre-Trial Chamber I provisionally concluded that Thomas Lubanga does not possess the financial resources to pay for adequate legal representation. The Court thus agreed to pay the expenses of his attorney — which he has yet to select from the approved list — until a better assessment of his finances can be conducted. In a related develoment (indeed!), the Pre-Trial Chamber issued a formal request to all State parties to “identify, localize, freeze and confiscate” Lubanga’s assets within their jurisdiction.

• Ecuador has ratified the Agreement on Privileges and Immunities, which provides ICC officials and staff with the same kind of privileges and immunities that employees of the UN and most international organizations enjoy. To date, 62 states have signed and 38 states have ratified the Agreement.

• The ICC is optimistic that Chile will pass the constitutional amendment needed to ratify the Rome Statute in the next few months. Chile is the only country in South America that is not a party to the Rome Statute, although it signed the treaty on September 11, 1998. Michelle Bachelet, Chile’s first woman president, has publicly supported Chile’s membership in the ICC.