18TH SESSION OF THE ASSEMBLY OF STATES PARTIES TO THE ROME STATUTE
Day 1 (2 December 2019)
Name of the Event: A Civil Society Conversation on ICC Review: Towards a Victim-Centered Assessment of ICC Performance (Side Event co-hosted by the American Bar Association’s International Criminal Court Project, International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and Human Rights Watch)
Overview by: Tanushree Nigam, Junior Research Associate PILPG-NL
Summary of the Event:
“If we are not protecting the victims who are speaking up against their regimes then we are not doing our job seriously"
The event brought together civil society experts working in the conflict situations of Ivory Coast, Libya, Sierra Leone, and Georgia to bring to focus possible ways of making the International Criminal Court more victim centric in its approach. Ambassador Stephen Rapp (ABA Board member and former US Ambassador-at-large for Global Criminal Justice) started the discussion by highlighting the importance of the job of civil society groups using the Milosevic example with regard to al-Bashir. He mentioned that States should be mindful of the complementarity principle and focus on capacity building of local groups and enabling effective assessors. He stressed that this is essential due to limited funds at the Court’s disposal.
Drissa Traore (FIDH Secretary General and Honorary President of the Mouvement ivoirien des droit humains), Marwa Mohamed (Head of Advocacy and Outreach at the Lawyers for Justice in Libya), and Nino Jomarjidze (Strategic Litigation Coordinator at the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association) continued the discussion with case studies of the different regions in conflict. The example of Ivory Coast was used to emphasize on 1) the importance of having written judgments by the Court. The panelist said that not doing this created a trust deficit in the minds of the victims and 2) effective coordination between domestic bodies and the Court to not not aggravate conflicts further. The experts made a reference to the Libyan situation to emphasize on the importance of purposive interpretation to enable access to justice to the widest group of victims. The Sierra Leone example was used to stress timely investigation in conflict situations and the importance of transparency and openness to bring victims issues at the forefront. The panelists also lauded Georgian civil society groups for being effective intermediaries between the Court and victims. All panelists stressed the importance of independent review of the Court by independent experts and lauded the proposal to bring a resolution in this regard as the ICC is the only hope for victims in regions of conflicts where local judicial systems are often ineffective.
The panelists offered various solutions to make the approach of the court more victim centric. They said that independent reviewers should be given enough time and man power to carry out their own investigations. Complementarity and bringing together different perspectives to the conflict was reiterated. They mentioned the importance of breaking the language barrier to make the victims feel more included and that the Court should pay special attention to the priorities of victims. Lastly and most importantly, the panelists stressed on the importance of increasing the budgetary allocation for the Trust Fund for Victims by State parties.