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26 Apr 2017 - NPWJ News Digest on International Criminal Justice
Articles
Africa: Bensouda, Annan Tell Africa to Stop Demonising the ICC
by AllAfrica, 25 Apr 2017
The sustained attack on the International Criminal Court by the African Union came into focus at the 2017 Mo Ibrahim Foundation annual Governance Weekend in Marrakech, Morocco. Foundation chairman Mohammed Ibrahim, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda defended the institution that has become the object of hate by the AU. Bensouda said the narrative that ICC targeted Africans unfairly should be rejected. "African leaders choose to ignore how the numerous cases found their way to the ICC in the first place," she said, disclosing that seven of them were referrals by governments. The referrals include the one against Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army and another against former Cote d'Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has distinguished himself as one of the fiercest critics of the court. Whereas he takes every chance to demonise ICC, he seems at peace with The Hague-based judges trying Ugandan insurgents. Kenya's case involving six suspected principal sponsors of the 2007/08 post-election violence was another referral. The suspects included current President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto. The Central African Republic and Mali have also referred cases to the court.
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'Mass murder' complaint filed against Philippines' President Duterte at ICC
by The Guardian, 25 Apr 2017
A Filipino lawyer has filed a complaint at the international criminal court (ICC) accusing president Rodrigo Duterte and 11 other Philippine officials of mass murder and crimes against humanity. In the first publicly known filing to the Hague court against Duterte, Jude Sabio submitted the 77-page complaint that says the president has “repeatedly, unchangingly and continuously” committed extra-judicial executions or mass murders over three decades, amounting to crimes against humanity. It says the killing of 9,400 people began in 1988 when Duterte was mayor of the southern city of Davao and has lasted throughout his 10 months so far as president, during which he has waged a virulent and bloody “war on drugs”. The communication is based on the reports of human rights groups, Duterte’s own public admissions that he killed, media reports and the testimony of Sabio’s client, Edgar Matobato, a man who testified in the Philippines senate that he was part of a hit squad that operated on Duterte’s orders. The complaint also referred to testimony from retired police officer Arturo Lascanas, another hitman who said he personally killed “about 200 people” as a member of the Davao Death Squad. That organisation, Lascanas has said, regularly took direct orders from then-mayor Duterte to kill criminals, political opponents and journalists. “Sometimes we kidnapped our subject and put the packing tape on their head until they suffocated, and then we would throw them in the street,” recalled Lascanas in an interview with the Observer. Philippine lawmakers have dismissed the credibility of Matobato and Lascanas, while Duterte’s aides have rejected claims that he killed or ordered unlawful killings, even after he announced that he threw one suspect to his death from a helicopter.
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International court unseals warrant against Libyan suspect
by The Washington Post, 24 Apr 2017
The International Criminal Court on Monday unsealed an arrest warrant issued four years ago for the former head of Libya’s Internal Security Agency for torture and other crimes committed during the violent crackdown on anti-government protesters in 2011. The court said that Al-Tuhamy Mohamed Khaled is wanted for four crimes against humanity and three war crimes including torture, persecution, cruel treatment and outrages upon personal dignity committed on prisoners held by Libyan security forces during protests against the regime of former leader Moammar Gadhafi. The arrest warrant was issued under seal in April 2013 and is being publicized now at the request of Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda who believes doing so could raise awareness and “could foster support and cooperation for an arrest operation from the international community,” the court said in a statement. The U.N. Security Council called on the Hague-based court to launch an investigation in Libya in 2011 following Gadhafi’s brutal crackdown, but it has so far failed to prosecute a single suspect. Gadhafi was indicted, but was killed by rebels in his homeland.
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Hague Tribunal tries Monsanto for “ecocide”—in theory
by The New Food Economy, 20 Apr 2017
In October of 2016, five judges convened in The Hague, Netherlands, to hear testimonies from as many as seven victims who alleged that US-based agroindustrial giant, Monsanto, has “developed a number of highly toxic products, which have permanently damaged the environment, and caused illness or death for thousands of people.” In International Criminal Courtspeak that means that the judges were tasked with assessing whether or not Monsanto might be guilty of a crime that, for the moment, can only be committed symbolically: “ecocide.” The treaty that permanently established the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1998 is known as “The Rome Statute,” so named for the eponymous city in which the United Nations General Assembly convened and adopted it in a vote of 120 in favor and 7 against (with 21 abstentions). The statute did two remarkable things: 1) established four core international crimes—genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression—and 2) freed states from the burden of investigating and prosecuting those crimes if they were “unable” or “unwilling” to do so. While individual states retained their status in national courts as the primary prosecutors of suspected war criminals, the ICC did begin to chip away at impunity by reinforcing international humanitarian law in “the most serious crimes of international concern.” “Ecocide” is not currently included as one of the “core four” international crimes, though environmental activists have long campaigned for it to be formally accepted as the fifth. In 2010, British lawyer Polly Higgins submitted to the UN Law Commission a proposal urging the UN to do just that. Acceptance would have made it possible to bring criminal charges against corporations and their management for crimes against human health and environmental soundness. Her proposal fizzled.
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