16 Jun 2021 - NPWJ News Digest on international criminal justice

NPWJ press release

Open civil society letter to ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda
No Peace Without Justice, 14 Jun 2021

79 civil society organizations (including No peace Without Justice) thank Prosecutor Bensouda for her service at the ICC and applaud the high degree of independence she exhibited during her mandate. We call on the new prosecutor to build on this legacy.

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Articles

ICC: New Prosecutor Takes Up Mandate
Human Rights Watch, 16 Jun 2021

The new prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) should seize opportunities to strengthen the court’s delivery of justice for victims, Human Rights Watch said today. Karim Khan, the court’s third prosecutor, will be sworn in on June 16, 2021, beginning a nine-year term following his election by ICC member countries.

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Mrs Fatou Bensouda finishes her mandate as ICC Prosecutor: “To be effective, to be just and to be a real deterrent, the Office of the Prosecutor’s activities and decisions must always be based solely on the law, without fear or favour.”
International Criminal Court, 15 Jun 2021

In the past week, a number of farewell events were held in honour  of  the outgoing Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court ("ICC" or the "Court"), Mrs Fatou Bensouda, whose nine year mandate at the head of the ICC Office of the Prosecutor ("Office" or "OTP") comes to an end today, on 15 June 2021. She has served the Court since 2004, first as Deputy Prosecutor. Mr Karim Asad Ahmad Khan will be sworn in as Prosecutor of the ICC as of tomorrow, 16 June 2021.

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Statement of the Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, on her request to open an investigation of the Situation in the Philippines
International Criminal Court, 14 Jun 2021

Today, I announce that the preliminary examination into the situation in the Republic of the Philippines ("the Philippines") has concluded and that I have requested judicial authorisation to proceed with an investigation. As I stated in December 2019, at the annual session of the Assembly of States Parties, before I end my term as Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court ("ICC" or the "Court"), I intend to reach determinations on all situations that have been under preliminary examination during my tenure, as far as I am able to do so in accordance with my obligations under the Rome Statute. 

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‘Huge step’: Relatives of Guatemala disappeared hope for justice
Al Jazeera, 13 Jun 2021

Guatemala City, Guatemala – Marcia Mendez never stopped searching for her sister. Now, decades after Luz Haydee was disappeared by Guatemalan military forces, justice may be on the horizon, after a Guatemalan judge this month ordered a trial into crimes committed in the 1980s.

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Colombia ex-president asks forgiveness for army's extrajudicial killings
Reuters, 11 Jun 2021

In public testimony to Colombia's truth commission on Friday, former President Juan Manuel Santos asked for forgiveness for extrajudicial killings of thousands of people committed by the country's armed forces partly during his time as defense minister.

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ICC prosecutor urges Sudan to hand over Darfur war crime suspects
Al Jazeera, 10 Jun 2021

Fatou Bensouda has given her last briefing as chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to the UN Security Council on Wednesday, lamenting that the tribunal has not yet brought justice to victims of atrocities in Sudan’s western Darfur region. But, she said, a new era in Sudan and the transfer of the first Darfur suspect to the court should give them hope.

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