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20 Jul 2016 - NPWJ News Digest on international criminal justice
Articles
Africa: Governments Defend ICC At African Union Summit
by allAfrica, 20 Jul 2016
The 27th African Union summit closed Monday evening without an AU call for immediate mass withdrawal from the International Criminal Court in the face of strong pushback from Nigeria, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Tunisia and even ICC non-member Algeria, media reports and observers said. The governments that opposed an AU call for withdrawal noted that the AU is not a member of the ICC, and that only states, not intergovernmental entities, may join. The governments noted that the AU includes some 20 countries that are not ICC members, who should not dictate to African states that are ICC members. The opposition to the AU call is a game changer. Since 2013, debate over the ICC at the AU has been dominated by the ICC's opponents and fueled by misinformation. Attacks on the ICC have largely met silence from the court's 34 African members, with the exception of Botswana. Even though many continue to back the ICC privately and at meetings outside the AU, they have gone quiet at the AU as the ICC had become a toxic issue there.
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ISIS as a Mirror
by Dissident Voice, 19 Jul 2016
In part, the rapacious ugliness of ISIS is a reflection of the policies which formed it. We flinch at recognizing in ISIS atrocities the embodiment of the cruelty in NATO’s policies, the callousness of Madeleine Albright evaluating the lives of Iraqi children, the swagger and glee of Hilary Clinton at Gaddafi‘s murder, the effects on millions of insisting on regime change in someone else’s country and the Euro-American refusal to accept Syria’s democratically elected president. Assad has been demonized by the corporate/state press and alleged to be responsible for war crimes, as was done to Saddam Hussein, Milosevic, and Gaddafi. In a competition of atrocities one longs for the common voice of reason, for the Chorus of Greek Tragedy, for the poetry of daily life. The United Nations’ Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic has released a new report, “’They came to destroy’: ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis,” to deal specifically with the horrific treatment of Yazidi peoples by ISIS. Much of its evidence concerns Sinjar of northern Iraq, but many of ISIS captives are kept in Syria. The Commission’s report substantiates evidence of a genocide in progress against the Yazidi people in Iraq and Syria, limiting the scope of its inquiry to one minority.
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Sudan’s Bashir defies the ICC, attending Rwanda summit
by World bulletin , 17 Jul 2016
Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir arrived in Rwanda on Saturday to attend a summit of African leaders, defying an international warrant for his arrest after public assurances from Rwandan leaders that he would not be arrested. The African Union summit on Sunday is expected to discuss the continent’s uneasy relationship with the International Criminal Court, which some say unfairly targets Africans. Ahead of the summit, some African countries renewed efforts to quit the ICC enmasse despite the opposition of some countries like Botswana. Nigeria, Senegal and Ivory Coast have been pushing back as well in recent days. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has led growing criticism of the ICC, calling it “useless” during his inauguration in May, an event that al-Bashir attended. Some countries want a separate African court with jurisdiction over rights abuses. “Withdrawal from ICC is entirely within the sovereignty of a particular state,” Joseph Chilengi, an AU official, told reporters Saturday. Al-Bashir is wanted by the ICC for alleged atrocities in the country’s Darfur region. He should be at the ICC answering to charges that include genocide, “not persisting in this game of cat-and-mouse with the court,” Elise Keppler of Human Rights Watch said Saturday night.
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The international criminal court is vital to our fight against impunity in Africa
by The Guardian, 17 Jul 2016
In popular accounts, Africa and the international criminal court are pitted against each other. The ICC is derided as being “biased” against Africa, ignorant of the attitudes and desires of Africans, even neocolonial. In reality, the relationship suffers from misinformation and misunderstandings. Many parties share responsibility for this. Some African leaders have, on occasion, descrubed the ICC in order to protect themselves from the court’s scrutiny. Equally, the ICC has not been able to communicate its message effectively on the continent, leaving it susceptible to misrepresentation by those who seek to undermine the institution. Some insist that the ICC has no place in Africa and that African states must withdraw from the court because the institution has intervened primarily in African conflicts, while situations outside the continent are not investigated. However, it makes little sense to suggest that because justice cannot be served everywhere, justice should not be served anywhere. Such an attitude insults victims and survivors alike.
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The coming of age of international criminal justice
by Oxford University Press , 15 Jul 2016
Fifteen years ago, on 17 July 1998, the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC), was adopted, creating the first permanent international forum to try and punish perpetrators of mass atrocities. The anniversary of the adoption of the Rome Statute was chosen as World Day for International Justice — a ‘holiday’ to celebrate not only the ICC, but the whole emerging system of international criminal justice. This year the Rome Statute celebrates its fifteenth birthday, its Quinceañera. A good opportunity for a few thoughts on past, present and future of international criminal justice. Past: Success The emergence of an international system of criminal justice is indeed worth celebrating. It represents one of the few bright spots in the recent history of international law. In the last decade of the 20th century we experienced phenomenal progress in individual criminal accountability for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, with, inter alia, the establishment of the ad hoc Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the proceedings for human rights violations, in particular torture, against Chilean General Augusto Pinochet in Spain and the United Kingdom, the establishment of the International Criminal Court, and the implementation of international core crimes into many national legal orders.