Tagged: UN Charter

Another State Ratifies Crime of Aggression Amendments

To follow up on our previous post, the International Criminal Court (ICC) reports in its December 8, 2014 press release that on December 5, 2014, another state, Georgia, deposited the instrument of ratification of the 2010 amendments to the Rome Statute on the crime of aggression. This ratification brings the number of ratifications of the crime of aggression amendments to a total of twenty so far. The press release further notes that Georgia “is the seventh country from the Eastern European Group to have ratified this set of amendments,” following Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

The crime of aggression was included in the Rome Statute in 1998 but the definition of the crime and the process by which the Court can exercise jurisdiction over this crime was not articulated until the 2010 Review Conference in Kampala, Uganda. These amendments are set to go in effect on January 1, 2017 and the Court will be able to exercise jurisdiction over the crime of aggression once thirty States Parties have ratified the amendments.

Article 8 bis (1) articulates the definition of crime of aggression as

the planning, preparation, initiation or execution, by a person in a position effectively to exercise control over or to direct the political or military action of a State, of an act of aggression which, by its character, gravity and scale, constitutes a manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations.

Article 8 bis (2) further states that act of aggression means

the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations.

The definition directly draws on the principles articulated in and established by the UN Charter, namely Article 2(4). In light of the continuous situation in Ukraine and Crimea, can we expect more ratifications soon?

The ICC Asks the UN Security Council for Additional Support of Its Work

POST WRITTEN BY: Prof. Peter Widulski, Assistant Director of the First Year Legal Skills Program and the Coach of International Criminal Moot Court Team at Pace Law School.

As reported in the October 24, 2014 press release, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Mrs. Fatou Bensouda, on October 23, 2014, addressed the United Nations Security Council on ways the Council can provide more effective support to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The relationship between the ICC and the Security Council, which the Prosecutor addressed, has important implications for the ICC’s goal to end impunity for grave international crimes. Unlike the International Court of Justice, which was established in 1945 by the U.N. Charter as the U.N.’s principal judicial organ, the International Criminal Court is a judicial body independent of the U.N. The ICC was established through a separate treaty – the Rome Statute that entered into force in 2002 – with different jurisdictional predicates focusing on prosecution of individuals alleged to have committed grave crimes of an internationally recognized nature that are within the ICC’s subject matter jurisdiction.

Despite the ICC’s independent status, the Preamble of the Rome Statute “reaffirm[s] the Purposes and Principles of the Charter of the United Nations [which require] that all States shall refrain [from acting with force] in any … manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.” In addition, Article 13(b) of the Statute accords the Council the capability to refer to the Court for criminal investigation matters the Council deems appropriate pursuant to its responsibility under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter “to maintain or restore international peace and security.”

Article 13(b) provides the Council with the opportunity for the first time to invoke its Chapter VII authority to initiate criminal investigations before a standing international criminal court. Before the ICC’s establishment, the Council, when confronted with situations in which severe crimes threatening international peace occurred, had to provide for both investigation and prosecution through special resolutions and particularly crafted statutes that created ad hoc tribunals, such as those for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda.

The authority accorded to the Council by Article 13(b) is powerful and important because it authorizes the Council to refer to the ICC Prosecutor investigation of crimes within the ICC’s subject matter jurisdiction where the ICC’s other jurisdictional predicates would otherwise be lacking. The Council can refer to the ICC Prosecutor investigation of crimes in situations even when the alleged crimes do not occur on the territory of a State Party to the Rome Statute or were not committed by a national of a State Party.

The Security Council has utilized its Article 13(b) authority thus far to refer two situations to the ICC: Darfur, Sudan (2005) and Libya (2011). The ICC Prosecutor has been actively pursuing cases in both of these situations.

Following the Council’s Sudan referral, an ICC court issued arrest warrants for Sudanese president Omar Hassan Ahmad al Bashir in March 2009 and again in July 2010, charging him with co-perpetrator responsibility on multiple counts alleging crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide relating to the bloody conflict in Sudan.

Several African States have declined to execute these warrants when Al Bashir traveled to these States for diplomatic purposes. As reported previously on this blog, in April of this year an ICC Pre-Trial Chamber chastised the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for failing to comply with ICC requests for Al Bashir’s arrest when in February 2014, he visited the DRC to participate in a summit conference of African leaders.

In her October 23 address to the Council and during the discussion that followed, Prosecutor Bensouda gave prominent attention to issues relating to the Darfur situation. She called on the Council, when issuing its Article 13(b) referrals, to advise States of their cooperation responsibilities in the stronger terms that it used in its resolutions creating the ad hoc tribunals. She urged the Council to call on U.N. Member States to cooperate in the arrest of suspects under ICC arrest warrants, and she urged the Council to consider ways to address the failure of States to comply with such obligations.

ICC Prosecutor Responds to Criticism Regarding the Court and Gaza

POST WRITTEN BY: Prof. Peter Widulski, Assistant Director of the First Year Legal Skills Program and the Coach of International Criminal Moot Court Team at Pace Law School.

On September 2, 2014, the ICC Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, issued a public statement in which she rejected as “baseless” criticisms in “[r]ecent media reports and commentaries,” which she said “have erroneously suggested that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has persistently avoided opening an investigation into alleged war crimes in Gaza due to political pressure.”

The Prosecutor stated that these criticisms were without merit because of the Rome Statute’s jurisdictional requirements. The Prosecutor did not (and could not, without investigation) argue that any alleged crimes committed by any participant in the conflict failed to meet the Statute’s subject matter requirements for genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity. The problem, rather, was the Statute’s other jurisdictional requirements that authorize the ICC to open an investigation only with respect to crimes alleged to have occurred on the territory of a State or by nationals of a State that has ratified the Rome Statute or has accepted ICC jurisdiction by an ad hoc declaration pursuant to Article 12(3) of the Statute. At this time, neither Israel nor the Palestinian Authority is a State Party to the Rome Statute, nor has either as yet filed an Article 12(3) declaration. (Palestine did file such a declaration in 2009, but it was found invalid for lack of standing.)

The Prosecutor noted that her Office after examination has concluded that because of UN General Assembly Res. 67/19 issued on November 29, 2012 upgrading Palestine’s status to a “non-member observer State,” Palestine could now accede to the Rome Statute or lodge an Article 12(3) declaration conferring jurisdiction to the ICC over the situation in Gaza. But it has not yet done so.

The Prosecutor in her statement referred to an additional mechanism through which the ICC could obtain authorization to investigate the situation in Gaza. Pursuant to Article 13(b) of the Rome Statute, the UN Security Council can act under its Chapter VII powers to authorize an ICC investigation, even if the alleged crimes were not committed on the territory of a State Party or by a national of a State Party. The Security Council has not taken such action as yet with respect to Gaza (nor has it done so with respect to the violence in Syria).

Amnesty International, a non-governmental organization whose mission is to protect human rights internationally, has called for the UN Security Council, the Palestinian Authority, and Israel to provide the ICC with jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute any persons responsible for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in the current and past Israeli-Palestinian conflicts.

The Prosecutor concluded her September 2 statement by saying,

It is my firm belief that recourse to justice should never be compromised by political expediency. The failure to uphold this sacrosanct requirement will not only pervert the cause of justice and weaken public confidence in it, but also exacerbate the immense suffering of the victims of mass atrocities. This, we will never allow.

The ICC has been the target of many political criticisms and challenges, starting from its foundational conferences in the 1990s, and these challenges will, no doubt, continue for years to come. The ICC Prosecutor is to be commended for being proactive in addressing these challenges in an effort to support the credibility of the Court.

ICC Pursues the Arrest of Al Bashir

POST WRITTEN BY: Prof. Peter Widulski, Assistant Director of the First Year Legal Skills Program and the Coach of International Criminal Moot Court Team at Pace Law School

On April 9, 2014, the Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a decision chastising the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for failing to comply with ICC requests for the arrest and surrender of Omar Al Bashir, the President of Sudan.

In March 2005, the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution referring the Situation in Darfur, Sudan, to the ICC for investigation. This was the first time the Security Council referred a situation to the ICC pursuant to Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter and Article 13(b) of the ICC’s Rome Statute. Following an investigation by the ICC Prosecutor, the ICC issued two arrest warrants for Al Bashir, first in March 2009 and second in July 2010, charging him with responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, committed during the bloody conflict in Darfur.

The Pre-Trial Chamber’s rebuke of the DRC was occasioned by the DRC’s failure to arrest Al Bashir when in late February 2014, he visited the DRC to participate in a summit conference of African leaders to discuss matters of common economic concern in Eastern and Southern Africa. Having advance notice of this visit, the Pre-Trial Chamber issued a request to the DRC to arrest and surrender Al Bashir, pursuant to the previously issued warrants. The DRC is a State Party to the Rome Statute, and Part IX of the Statute requires State Parties to cooperate with the ICC with regard, among other matters, to the arrest and surrender of persons for whom the ICC has issued an arrest warrant.

Among its reasons for not arresting Al Bashir during his February visit, the DRC asserted that it was obligated to respect Al Bashir’s immunity as a head of state, despite the fact that Article 27 of the Rome Statute does not recognize head of state immunity as a bar to ICC prosecution. The DRC, not implausibly, found authority for its position in Rome Statute Article 98(1), which states that the ICC “may not proceed with a request for surrender or assistance which would require the requested State to act inconsistently with its obligations under international law with respect to the State or diplomatic immunity of a person or property of a third State, unless the Court can first obtain the cooperation of that third State for the waiver of the immunity.” Sudan is such a “third State,” not being a State Party.

The Pre-Trial Chamber found the DRC’s claim unavailing because of the Security Council’s referral of the Sudan Situation to the ICC. The Chamber stated in paragraph 31 of its Decision that the Security Council, when referring the Darfur Situation by way of a Resolution pursuant to its Chapter VII authority, “implicitly lifted the immunities of Omar Al Bashir ….” (Both the DRC and Sudan are U.N. members, subject to Security Council authority.)

The Chamber forcefully stated in paragraph 33 of its decision that compliance with a Security Council referral to the ICC was of paramount importance; otherwise such a referral “would never achieve its ultimate goal … to put an end to impunity.”

The Chamber found that the DRC’s failure to arrest Al Bashir constituted a failure of the DRC to comply with its obligations to cooperate with the ICC. Accordingly, the Chamber stated that it was referring its decision to the Security Council and to the Assembly of State Parties.

The Chamber has made a strong statement in support of the ICC’s mandate. But its decision will continue some of the political controversies in which the ICC has been involved, especially given the fact that the DRC and Sudan are member States of the African Union, which has criticized the ICC for allegedly giving excessive and inappropriate attention to affairs in Africa.

The International Criminal Court Convicts Katanga for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity

POST WRITTEN BY: Prof. Peter Widulski, Assistant Director of the First Year Legal Skills Program and the Coach of International Criminal Moot Court Team at Pace Law School

On March 7, 2014, a Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) rendered a guilty verdict against Germain Katanga, relating to an investigation commenced in June 2004 by the ICC Prosecutor into the Situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This is the second conviction achieved by an ICC Prosecutor since the entry into force of the ICC’s Rome Statute on July 1, 2002.

The ICC’s first conviction was rendered in 2012 against Thomas Lubanga Dyilo. The Lubanga Case also arose out of the Prosecutors’ investigation of the DRC situation. Lubanga, the leader of an armed group opposed to the DRC government, was convicted pursuant to Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the war crime of conscripting children into his military forces.

Germain Katanga, who also led an armed force opposed to the DRC, was also convicted of Article 8 war crimes. Notably, however, he was also found guilty on one count of a crime against humanity, pursuant to Article 7(1)(a) of the Rome Statute. This represents the first conviction the ICC Prosecutor has obtained on a charge of crimes against humanity.

Pursuing a charge of crimes against humanity requires the ICC Prosecutor, under Article 7(1) of the Rome Statute, to prove that the underlying criminal acts were committed “as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population ….”

During the 1990s prior to the entry into force of the Rome Statute, the United Nations Security Council, pursuant to its authority under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, enacted the Statutes of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Tribunal for Rwanda. These statutes contain similar requirements for prosecution of crimes against humanity.

In accordance with these statutory requirements, the ICTY and the ICTR have obtained convictions against many defendants on charges of crimes against humanity. While these cases are not binding on ICC Court, when in September 2008 the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber confirmed the crimes against humanity charge against Katanga, it explicitly referenced and found guidance from the ICTY and ICTR cases regarding their interpretation of the elements required to sustain a crimes against humanity charge.

The Trial Chamber found Katanga not guilty of some of the war crimes charged and one of the crimes against humanity charged. Both the Defense and the Prosecutor have 30 days within which to appeal the judgment. The Trial Chamber will soon conduct proceedings with respect to the sentence and reparations for the victims.