Search: palestine icc
16 Nov Selecting the ICC’s Next ASP President: High Scrutiny for High Stakes
questionable behavior as Chef de Cabinet. Fernández de Gurmendi’s relationship with the ICC began when she served as an Argentine diplomat for the negotiations that led to the 1998 creation of the Court in Rome. By currying favor with the United Kingdom and Canada, she was able to shepherd through Moreno-Ocampo’s successful candidacy as the ICC’s first prosecutor. According to Morten Bergsmo (here), who served as the OTP’s Senior Legal Adviser during the ICC’s early years, as well as ICL expert Christopher Mahoney (here), Fernández de Gurmendi persuaded Moreno-Ocampo that...
29 Aug Ukraine’s Perspective on the Long-Awaited Ratification of the Rome Statute and What Comes Next
...with respect to the crime of aggression and accepts the ad hoc jurisdiction of the ICC retroactively with respect to the crime of aggression as of 17 July 2018. The ad hoc jurisdiction acceptance is a symbolic gesture, given that the ICC will not be able to try senior Russian leaders in light of Russia’s non-ratification of the RS and Kampala amendments (paras 1 (2) & 2). Cooperation The bill details the process of cooperation between the ICC and Ukrainian authorities. All ICC requests for cooperation should be communicated either...
17 Nov Legal Consistency in the ICC Jurisprudence: A Brief Critique of the ICC’s Response to Recommendations on the Jurisprudence Made in the Independent Expert Review Report
...Response to Recommendation 217, the ICC is trite. It notes that all ‘Chambers of the Court already carefully consider previous jurisprudence before reaching their own decisions’ (Response para 387). Recommendation 217 did however not revolve around the consideration of existing jurisprudence (Response paras 387, 389). Rather, it was about the ICC Chambers ‘departing from established practice or jurisprudence’ without providing sufficient reasoning as to why. Granted, the ICC may not have wanted to delve into the intricacies of the specific case referred to in the Report, the Bemba Judgment on...
27 Mar Putin Arrest Warrant: International Law and Perceptions of Double Standards
was an unprecedented step by the Prosecutor. In other situations where civil society and victims have advocated for the ICC prosecutor to exercise preventative complementarity or issues statements of this kind particularly in desperate contexts of extreme atrocity (including by states parties to the ICC Statute), the court has not been as forthcoming. This is likely because of the ICC’s interest in maintaining strong and cooperative relationships with such states and their influential supporters. With Russia not being party to the Rome Statute of the ICC, the Court presumably does...
06 Feb ICC and Palestine Symposium: The (Non) Effects of Oslo on Rights and Status
of dubious legal value. In fact, the jurisdictional scope of the ICC is considerably wider than the OTP specifies in its request. Hence, as this matter moves forward, the ICC’s understanding of its jurisdictional scope should not be constrained by the exceptionalist framing of the Oslo Process. This includes the fundamental rights of Palestinians and in particular the ICC’s jurisdiction over crimes against humanity, including the crime of apartheid, of which there is abundant evidence. An effective ICC investigation goes hand in hand with accountable leadership A future ICC investigation...
24 Apr ICC Prosecutor Symposium: The ICC Assembly of States Parties’ Selection Process for the Third ICC Prosecutor
...Conflict/Opinio Juris symposium on the ICC Prosecutor, is dedicated to the memory of Felipe Michelini, Chair of the Board of Directors of the ICC’s Trust Fund for Victims, who passed away following a tragic accident as this piece was being finalized.] Introduction As Chairs of the ICC Assembly of States Parties Committee and Panel of Experts on the Election of the Prosecutor, we have read with interest the thoughtful articles in the recent symposium on “The Next ICC Prosecutor.” As the conveners rightly stressed in their introduction, “the choice of...
31 Jan As Rome Mutinies, Justice for Libya Fades
arrest warrants. Instead, any act of cooperation with the ICC requires prior formal communication between the MoJ – the central authority responsible for receiving, coordinating and following up on ICC’s requests – and the General Prosecutor (Art. 2 Law 237/2012). This interpretation of Law 237/2012 raises two significant issues. First, the law’s general provisions explicitly state that ICC cooperation should follow extradition norms unless otherwise provided (Art. 3 Law 237/2012). Thus, the lack of reference to the concrete modalities for executing ICC arrest warrants in Law 237/2012 leaves open the...
25 Sep Positive Retorsion and the Power and Responsibilities of States Parties to Protect the ICC
on all States Parties to the Rome Statute: an approach I think of as “positive retorsion.” It involves overcompensation for wronged persons, principally ICC employees. Most fundamentally, the Assembly of State Parties should massively increase the ICC budget at its upcoming December meeting. The Trump Administration has essentially been seeking to take the officials of the ICC, and now the ICC itself, hostage. The Administration has been saying, in effect, “keep your authority away from us and from our allies and perhaps we will not make it expensive for you...
09 Feb Guilty on 61 Counts – What the Ongwen Verdict Indicates about the Limitations of Individual Criminal Responsibility for Mass Atrocities
the reasoning behind the judgment suggests that the type of perpetrators that can be brought to justice at the ICC is significantly limited. More specifically, the ICC’s trial record thus far indicates that the Court is more likely to convict mid-level commanders associated with insurgent groups (e.g. Katanga, Al-Mahdi, Ntaganda) and acquit high-level political figures (e.g. Bemba, Gbagbo). The Ongwen verdict confirms this trend. While scholarly analysis often looks to the complex political environment of the ICC to explain the limited pool of defendants, in this post I do something...
01 Dec Complementarity Is No Excuse: Why the ICC Investigation in Libya Must Include Crimes Against Migrants and Refugees
Libya’s Dark Web of Collusion; Human Rights Watch 2019 report No Escape from Hell: EU Policies Contribute to Abuse of Migrants in Libya; and a communication to the ICC). As such, the question is not whether these crimes have been committed, but who should be investigating and prosecuting them. The ICC seems to be the most obvious answer for several reasons: (1) the ICC is able to fully capture the gravity and complexity of the crimes in a way that domestic courts cannot; (2) the ICC is not impeded by...