26 Oct 2016 - NPWJ News Digest on international criminal justice

NPWJ in the news

Il Sudafrica annuncia l'intenzione di uscire dalla Corte Penale Internazionale
Radio Radicale, 22 Oct 2016


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Collegamento con Niccolò Figà Talamanca (segretario generale dell'Associazione Non c'è Pace senza Giustizia) realizzato da Lorenzo Rendi.

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Articles

South Africa to quit international criminal court
By The Guardian, 26 Oct 2016

South Africa says it is pulling out of the international criminal court, making the country the second this week, after Burundi, to move to leave the tribunal that pursues the world’s worst atrocities. The ICC’s obligations are inconsistent with domestic laws giving sitting leaders diplomatic immunity, the country’s justice minister, Michael Masutha, said. Pretoria said last year it planned to leave the ICC after receiving criticism for ignoring a court order to arrest the visiting Sudanese president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who is accused of genocide and war crimes. Bashir has denied the accusations. On Friday at a press conference in the capital, Masutha said: “The implementation of the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court Act 2002 is in conflict and inconsistent with the provisions of the Diplomatic Immunities and Privileges Act 2001.” Under the Rome statute, countries have a legal obligation to arrest anyone sought by the tribunal. Any move to leave would take effect one year after notice is formally received by the United Nations secretary general, currently Ban Ki-moon. Earlier on Friday, the public broadcaster SABC published a document outlining the withdrawal plan. The document was signed by South Africa’s minister of international relations and cooperation, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, and dated 19 October. “The Republic of South Africa has found that its obligations with respect to the peaceful resolution of conflicts at times are incompatible with the interpretation given by the international criminal court,” the document states. The international criminal court opened in July 2002 and has 124 member states. It was the first legal body with permanent international jurisdiction to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

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Gambia announces withdrawal from International Criminal Court
by Reuters, 25 Oct 2016

The government of Gambia said on Tuesday it was withdrawing from the International Criminal Court, accusing the world body of ignoring the "war crimes" of Western nations and seeking only to prosecute Africans. The decision by the tiny West African nation, whose president, Yahya Jammeh, has called on the court to investigate African migrant deaths on the Mediterranean, comes just days after South Africa said it was quitting The Hague-based tribunal. "This action is warranted by the fact that the ICC, despite being called the International Criminal Court, is in fact an International Caucasian Court for the persecution and humiliation of people of colour, especially Africans," Information Minister Sheriff Bojang said on state television. The ICC was not immediately available for comment. But coming so soon after South Africa's announcement, Gambia's move added to pressure on the world's first permanent war crimes court. The ICC has had to fight off allegations of pursuing a neo-colonial agenda in Africa, where all but one of its 10 investigations have been based.

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Philippines senator calls for Duterte to face crimes against humanity inquiry
by The Guardian, 24 Oct 2016

A leading member of the Philippines’ senate has called for an international criminal investigation into the country’s president in an effort to stop a vicious war on drugs that has killed more than 3,800 people since June. Senator Leila de Lima, a human rights advocate and former justice secretary, has told the Guardian that foreign intervention was the only hope of putting an end to “state-inspired” extrajudicial murders that have terrorised parts of the population since president Rodrigo Duterte came to power four months ago. In an interview De Lima urged world leaders to consider sanctions and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague to launch an investigation into Duterte and those who worked for him. “It [ICC] should start to think about investigating already or doing an inquiry into the killings as crimes against humanity,” she said. The senator fears for her own life after she was ousted last month as chair of an inquiry looking into the vigilante death squads targeting drug dealers and users, and her address and mobile number were made public. “For a few weeks after that I was unable to go home, I slept in other places although I was able to sneak into my house from time to time, so I felt like a thief in the night in my own home,” she said.

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Jean-Pierre Bemba, Congolese Politician Imprisoned for War Crimes, Is Convicted of Witness Tampering
by The New York Times, 19 Oct 2016

Jean-Pierre Bemba, a Congolese politician who is serving an 18-year prison sentence for crimes against humanity and war crimes, was convicted on Wednesday of coaching and bribing witnesses to give false testimony. The conviction for witness tampering broke new legal ground for the International Criminal Court, which in March found Mr. Bemba guilty of leading a four-month campaign of looting, rape and murder in the Central African Republic in 2002 and 2003. Two of Mr. Bemba’s defense lawyers and two of his associates were also found guilty on Wednesday of offenses against the administration of justice. “No legal system in the world can accept the bribing of witnesses, the inducement of witnesses to lie,” said the presiding judge, Bertram Schmitt, who read out the summary of the decision in court. “Today’s judgment sends the clear message that the court is not willing to allow its proceedings to be hampered or destroyed.” The court faces criticism because all of its convictions so far have been related to crimes committed in Africa. This month, lawmakers in Burundi voted overwhelmingly to withdraw from the treaty that established the court; Burundi would be the first country to withdraw. (The United States never ratified the treaty.) Witness tampering and tinkering with evidence have been a bane of all international courts and tribunals that have sprung up over the last two decades. Tribunals dealing with Lebanon, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and the former Yugoslavia have all handed down fines and prison sentences for contempt of court.

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