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UN PhotoGeneral Assembly
27th Plenary Meeting of General Assembly 73rd Session
While it is extremely easy to violate human rights anywhere, justice systems in too many places remain unable to adequately deal with these crimes, the President of the International Criminal Court told the General Assembly today, calling for the requisite support for the institution to deliver on its mandate of prosecuting the world’s worst atrocities.
“Justice must not suffer the fate of the neglected orphan,” said Chile Eboe‑Osuji as he introduced the Court’s annual report. The document — which the Assembly would later in the meeting welcome through its adoption of a draft resolution (document A/73/L.8) without a vote — summarizes the institution’s activities, accomplishments and challenges from the past year.
Today, as millions of people around the world continue to endure war and violence, the Court is needed in ways that would have been unforeseeable to its creators. “This must trouble us,” he said. “We need a strong international structure of justice to attend to the matter of justice.”
With this year marking the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of the Rome Statute, States parties are compelled to examine what the Statute means for the world and for humankind, he said. While military interventions have successfully stopped atrocities, they were far too late for thousands of Bosnians and millions of Rwandans in the 1990s. The judicial system’s serious failing is what has made impunity possible. The paralysis in courts is partly due to a lack of resources and even more so to a lack of political will by authorities to hold perpetrators to account.
Furthermore, any fear that the Court is a usurper of national sovereignty implicates the reluctance of States that do not wish to ratify the Rome Statute. “Quite the contrary,” he emphasized, underscoring that the Court is a measure of last resort, which only steps in for purposes of accountability when serious atrocities have been committed. The Court remains valuable not as a usurper of sovereignty but as a mirror of conscience.
Kornelios Korneliou (Cyprus), Assembly Vice-President, said that the Court is an indispensable part of the overall judicial architecture. “For many around the world, the very existence of the Court is indicative of humanity’s will to protect people,” he emphasized, adding that the Court must be recognized as much more than an instrument of prosecution. The Court is a deterrent and a tool to prevent international crimes. If the international community has learned anything from wars of the past, it is that peace depends on multilateralism.
In the ensuing discussion, several Member States underscored the Court’s important work, calling for strengthened partnerships and appropriate resources so that the institution could fulfil its mandate.
Spain’s delegate said the Court continues to face several challenges that make it difficult to provide justice for serious international crimes, noting that some Member States refuse to collaborate, even in cases where the Court acts at the request of the Security Council. Furthermore, and despite its growing workload, the Court’s budget remains insufficient, he warned, calling for adequate resources for prosecutors, defence lawyers and the Public Counsel for Victims.
Brazil’s delegate said that any misperception of bias of selectivity regarding the Court’s activities would be dispelled by advancing the universality of the Rome Statute. Like all socially constructed systems, international law does not sustain itself, he added, urging proper funding for Council referrals to the Court. “The current situation is neither fair nor sustainable,” he added.
Echoing that concern, Switzerland’s representative said that the international community must reaffirm that it stands firmly behind international criminal justice and the Court’s role as the independent centrepiece. With nine preliminary examinations and 11 investigations on situations worldwide and numerous judgments on merits and reparations to victims, the Court has had a busy and successful year. This positive track record is clouded, however, by 15 arrest warrants and requests for surrender that remain unexecuted to date, weakening its deterring effect and ultimately the protection of the most vulnerable — victims of war.
Moreover, nationalism is on the rise and the international fight against impunity is often misrepresented as an obstacle to peace rather than one of its building blocks, he warned, adding that the fact that one State has withdrawn from the Rome Statute and another is poised to do so mirrors this regrettable development.
The representative of the Philippines said that her country’s withdrawal from the Court will take effect on 17 March 2019. The decision to withdraw is the Philippines’ principled stand against those who politicize human rights, he said, reaffirming her country’s commitment to fight impunity.
Several speakers welcomed the culmination last year of a decades‑long process to give the Court jurisdiction to prosecute crimes of aggression. Austria’s representative, among others, regretted that this development was omitted from the General Assembly resolution.
Some speakers also supported the Court’s ruling that it has jurisdiction concerning the forced displacement of the Rohingya population of Myanmar to Bangladesh, with the representative of Liechtenstein saying this offers a “clear path to justice” and the speaker for Bangladesh pledging his Government’s continued cooperation with the Court on the matter.
The representative for Myanmar, however, called the decision the result of “faulty procedure and dubious legal merit” and said his Government is under no obligation to respect it. “Nowhere in the Court’s Charter does it say that the Court has jurisdiction over States which have not accepted that jurisdiction,” he said, strongly deploring attempts by Member States to refer Myanmar to the Court.
China’s representative added that the Court’s decision was based on an inappropriate interpretation that might also make the institution’s future work more contentious, undermining further its authority and credibility. The Security Council has the exclusive power to determine acts of aggression, he emphasized.
Sudan’s representative said: “This Court contravenes with the principles of international law,” adding that the Court is not a part of the United Nations, despite efforts by some States to portray the situation otherwise. Ending impunity is a responsibility that falls under the purview of national entities as enshrined in domestic legal systems. It should also be seen as an institutional failure that over 50 per cent of the global population belongs to countries that do not recognize the Rome Statute, he stressed.
Also speaking today were the representatives of Mexico, Denmark (also on behalf of Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden), Japan, Slovenia, Slovakia, Canada, Italy, New Zealand, Libya, Poland, Peru, Netherlands, Cuba, Australia, Guatemala, Switzerland, Chile, Costa Rica, Estonia, Cyprus, Ukraine, Ecuador, Greece, Ireland, Uruguay, Paraguay, Georgia, Romania, El Salvador, Argentina, Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Korea, Senegal, Equatorial Guinea, United States, Syria, Russian Federation, Israel and Venezuela. A statement was also made by the representative of the European Union delegation.
The General Assembly will meet again at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, 31 October, to discuss the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.
