15 Dec The Draft Resolution’s Curious Paragraph 3
A friend who is even more jaded than I called my attention to the following curious paragraph in the Draft Resolution the ASP has just adopted by consensus:
3. Reaffirms paragraph 1 of article 40 and paragraph 1 of article 119 of the Rome Statute in relation to the judicial independence of the judges of the Court.
This paragraph is new — it was not included in the earlier Draft Resolution I blogged about. For those of you who are not total Rome Statute nerds, here is the text of the two referenced articles:
Art. 40(1): “The judges shall be independent in the performance of their functions.”
Art. 119: “Any dispute concerning the judicial functions of the Court shall be settled by the decision of the Court.”
I think my friend is right: Paragraph 3 likely represents the last gasp of the opt-out camp — a shameless plea to the judges to ignore the text and drafting history of the Draft Resolution and require states that have not ratified the aggression amendments to opt-out. Fortunately, as jaded as I am about the ICC’s judges, I think the likelihood of the plea ever succeeding is essentially zero. The text and drafting history are too clear. Moreover, a decision to adopt the opt-out position despite the text and drafting history of the Draft Resolution would be catastrophic for the Court. It would be bad enough if the OTP brought aggression charges against a state party that had not ratified the amendments. It could be the end of the Court — and I am not being Chicken Little here — if the judges permitted such charges to proceed. Such a decision could easily lead to the UK, France, Japan, and others to withdraw from the Court. And they would be justified in doing so.
The judges’ relentless judicial activism has damaged the Court enough. If the Court is to have any future — one in which states cooperate with it and use their muscle to ensure that it succeeds — states have to be confident that the judges will respect their will, even when that will is less than ideal.
Paragraph 3 should never have been included in the Draft Resolution.
There is no harm including this in the resolution, as these articles reference are already in the Rome Statute.
Yes, it was probably a nod to those who were not happy with the ultimate outcome, but the outcome was fairly clear, so here (this maybe be a first), I agree with Kevin that I doubt the judges can ignore the text of operative paragraph 2 agreed upon last night/early this morning.