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Guest Post: When Should the ICC Call It Quits?

[Rebecca Hamilton is an Associate in Law at Columbia Law School, and author of Fighting for Darfur.] The close of 2014 continued to bring bleak news for civilians in Darfur. As fighting in Sudan’s beleaguered western region increased, the UN looked to reduce its peacekeeping presence there. And this on the heels of the ICC Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, telling the Council that in the absence of any commitment from them to enforce the Darfur warrants, the Court would be suspending its investigative activities. As Kevin has already noted, Bensouda’s statement is a depressing insight into the moribund state of ICC-Security Council relations (not to mention another blow for survivors of the conflict). Yet as he also observed, it is heartening to see the Prosecutor laying the blame for the lack of arrests squarely where it belongs. For too long the Council has used its Darfur referral to outsource the problem to the ICC in lieu of taking meaningful steps itself. Beyond the immediate implications for Darfuris, the ICC, or the Security Council however, there is a broader question triggered by Bensouda’s statement, and one that commentators are yet to pay attention to: Under what conditions should the ICC Office of the Prosecutor stop its activities in a given situation? Both academics and practitioners have spent the first decade of the Court’s existence focused largely on issues related to the OTP’s commencement of activities in new situations. But as I argue in a forthcoming article in N.Y.U. J. Int’l L. & Pol., attention now needs to be directed to the question of what principles might guide the end of its operations. Given that Bensouda’s statement marks the first time an ICC Prosecutor has publicly discussed any halt to the OTP’s activities, it is worth closely scrutinizing the rationale upon which her decision is based, and considering some of the implications should the same rationale be used consistently as the basis for the temporary or permanent cessation of OTP operations in other situations. Good faith and cooperation Bensouda’s statement to the Council is worth reading in its entirety as a striking example of straightforward truth-telling in a setting so often filled with obfuscating diplomatic language. But in terms of using the statement to extract criteria the OTP could use to decide whether to stop its activities in other situations, there are a few key excerpts to focus on. The Prosecutor is clearly frustrated by the lack of arrest warrant enforcement, stating that “What is needed is a dramatic shift in this council's approach to arresting Darfur suspects.” But her concerns also seem to extend more broadly. “In the almost 10 years that my Office has been reporting to the Council, no strategic recommendation has ever been provided to my Office, and neither have there been any discussions resulting in concrete solutions to the problems we face in the Darfur situation.” It seems reasonable to assume that her reference to “the problems we face” includes not only the lack of arrest warrant enforcement, but also the lack of cooperation and denial of access that has plagued the Court’s Darfur investigation. As Sarah Nouwen details in her excellent book on the ICC and complementarity, the Sudanese government has refused all communications with the Court since the first Darfur warrants were issued back in 2007. Of particular note in the above excerpt is the focus on effort, in addition to results. The Prosecutor is seeking warrant enforcement and “concrete solutions.” Yet in bemoaning the absence of even recommendations by the Council to the Court, she also seems to suggest that a good faith effort by the Council to work with the Court throughout the duration of its Darfur investigation would have gone a long way toward convincing the OTP to continue its activities in the situation.