HRW report on International Criminal Court’s first 5 years

Human Rights Watch publicou onte un informe de 250 páxinas sobre os cinco primeiros anos do Tribunal Penal Internacional.

O informe leva por título “Courting History. The Landmark International Criminal Court’s First Years”. Copio un extracto da súa introducción:

On July 17, 1998, after five intense weeks of negotiations during the Rome Diplomatic Conference, representatives of 120 states from all regions and legal traditions achieved an historic development in the struggle against impunity. They agreed on a treaty creating the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the world’s first permanent court mandated to bring to justice the perpetrators of the worst crimes known to humankind —war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide— when national courts are unable to do so.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court entered into force on July 1, 2002, following its unexpectedly swift ratification by the required 60 states. The selection of the court officials needed to implement the ICC’s mandate soon followed. In March 2003 the first 18 judges of the court’s bench were sworn in. The ICC prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, took office in June 2003 following his election by states parties to the Rome Statute. The institution’s first chief administrator, the registrar Bruno Cathala, assumed office shortly thereafter. The ICC, once an aspiration, was finally becoming a reality.

Since then, the ICC has made significant progress. The prosecutor has opened investigations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), northern Uganda, the Darfur region of Sudan, and the Central African Republic (CAR). These investigations —all of which have been conducted in situations of instability or ongoing conflict— have led to criminal charges against at least 12 alleged perpetrators “bearing the greatest responsibility” for horrific crimes, crimes for which not long ago they would have very likely enjoyed complete impunity (12 arrest warrants are publicly known; there may be other sealed warrants in existence). At this writing, four of these alleged perpetrators are in ICC custody in The Hague, and the others are stigmatized as accused war criminals evading justice. The ICC’s establishment sends a strong signal to current and would-be perpetrators that complete impunity for the worst crimes will not be tolerated.

The ICC’s progress is not limited to prosecutions. Against many odds and in the face of innumerable difficulties, the Registry has established field offices in sometimes unstable environments in relation to all four country situations under investigation to maintain ongoing contact with victims, witnesses, and affected communities. Court officials have made efforts to convey important information about the ICC’s mandate and its work to affected communities in refugee camps, internally displaced person (IDP) camps, and remote villages. Witnesses have stepped forward to provide evidence, some of them so enabled because of the court’s capacity to protect them from the threats that they face in doing so. Victims from Darfur, Uganda, and Congo have applied and have been accepted to participate in ICC proceedings. Defense attorneys have at their disposal an independent office set up and funded by the court to provide them with essential legal support to help promote their clients’ right to a fair trial.

Not surprisingly, in grappling with the enormous challenges of setting up an unprecedented judicial institution, ICC officials have made mistakes. Indeed, Trial Chamber I’s June 2008 decision to “stay” the proceedings against Thomas Lubanga —thus suspending, in all respects, the court’s first-ever trial— because of the prosecution’s inability to disclose to the court and to the defense potentially exculpatory information collected under the Rome Statute’s confidentiality provision emphasizes this point. In this report, Human Rights Watch identifies some of these failings and makes recommendations aimed at improving the fairness and effectiveness of ICC operations. We have also stressed how important it is for the court —including the prosecutor— to more proactively engage with affected communities to make its work meaningful and relevant to them. This will require a complete and deeply rooted shift from the ICC’s prior ambivalence to doing so, which was evident in the court’s early approach to outreach and field operations, and the prosecutor’s investigations. It will mean an approach that fully embraces the importance of these communities in realizing the court’s mandate. Indeed, these are the very communities that the ICC was created to serve.

These problems notwithstanding, the biggest challenge facing the court in executing its mandate is primarily outside of its control: apprehending suspects. Without its own police force, the ICC must rely on the cooperation of the international community to enforce its orders. [...] It is the responsibility of the Rome Statute’s states parties (106 at this writing) and multilateral institutions like the United Nations (UN) to respond to the ICC’s requests for cooperation. The very success of the court depends on it. [...]