In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Author: Patricia Jimenez Kwast

16 Mar

[Patricia Jimenez Kwast is completing her doctoral research on wrongful non-cooperation in international law at the University of Oxford, where she also co-convenes the Oxford Public International Law Discussion Group.] In a recent post on Russia’s announcement that it will not cooperate with the ICC’s investigation into the Georgia situation, Kevin Jon Heller noted his puzzlement as to why Russia did not simply "milk a little goodwill by at least pretending to cooperate with the ICC” and simply "stop cooperating" if incriminating evidence was found. In response, I suggested that "[o]nce Russia agrees to cooperate with the Court, it can face decisions of non-cooperation if it would simply stop cooperating and might lead to steps under Article 87(5)(b) of the Statute." I commented that "pretending to cooperate or stopping cooperation after agreeing to cooperate does carry legal consequences.” Article 87(5)(b) of the Rome Statute provides:
Where a State not party to this Statute, which has entered into an ad hoc arrangement or an agreement with the Court, fails to cooperate with requests pursuant to any such arrangement or agreement, the Court may so inform the Assembly of States Parties or, where the Security Council referred the matter to the Court, the Security Council.
I should admit that I posted my comment without giving the precise implications of Article 87(5)(b) much thought at this point (I planned to consider them in a later journal article). I simply recalled Article 87(5) from writing an earlier post on a non-cooperation finding against Sudan. Like Sudan, Russia is a non-party, but the situation in Darfur was referred to the ICC by the SC whereas the Georgia situation is not. So the SC option in 87(5)(b) is irrelevant to questions of Russian non-cooperation. As Heller points out, "the most the Court can do is complain about Russian non-cooperation to the Assembly of States Parties." But what about my suggestion that Russia can face other steps under Article 87(5)(b) for its non-cooperation if it fails to cooperate after agreeing to do so? In the follow-up post Article 87(5) of the Rome Statute – Bizarre and Possibly Counterproductive, Heller comments:
I am much less sure than Kwast that Art. 87(5) would apply if Russia cooperated with the ICC and then stopped cooperating. The article seems to contemplate some kind of formal relationship between the Court and a non-party State — an “arrangement” or an “agreement” or something similar (ejusdem generis). After all, Art. 87(5)(b) addresses non-cooperation when a State “enters into” such an arrangement or agreement with the Court, language that we would normally associate with the law of contract. So I think the best reading of Art. 87(5) is that it applies only when a non-party State makes a formal commitment to cooperate with the Court and then breaks that commitment. I don’t think it applies any time a non-party State voluntarily provides the Court with information and then decides to stop providing it. After all, if Art. 87(5) does apply in such situations, it is profoundly counterproductive. Why would any non-party State ever voluntarily cooperate with the Court if doing so means that it cannot stop cooperating? I think the drafters of the Rome Statute were smart enough not to provide non-party States with such a powerful incentive to avoid the Court like the plague.
My first impulse is to agree entirely with the suggestion that Article 87(5)(b) should be read to apply “only when a non-party-State makes a formal commitment to cooperate with the Court and then breaks that commitment.” A formal commitment was the scenario of initial Russian cooperation that I had in mind, at least in so far as the phrase “or any other appropriate basis” – i.e. other than agreements and ad hoc arrangements – of 87(5)(a) is omitted from 87(5)(b). However,
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