The President of the International Criminal Court (ICC) presented the court’s annual report Monday to the UN General Assembly. The address took place 25 years after the original signing of the Rome Statute and outlined one of the court’s “most active periods since its establishment.”
The ICC president, Judge Piotr Hofmański, summarised the evolution of the court and how it managed to turn the “abstract concepts of the Rome Statute into a tangible reality.” However, he went on to say that challenges were ever-present and that the court had been subject to threats and attacks, including the arrest warrants issued by Russia against six ICC Judges and the ICC Prosecutor and cyber security incidents. Judge Hofmański was resolute in his assertion that the challenges would not stop them and that the court’s “work for justice continues with the fullest dedication every day.”
The President stated that there are currently 16 active situations before the court and highlighted some of the key developments of the past year. These include the conviction of Dominic Ongwen and his subsequent 25-year sentence for 61 war crimes and crimes against humanity in Northern Uganda, committed between July 2002 and December 2005. Furthermore, the court issued two arrest warrants concerning the alleged unlawful deportations and the unlawful transfer of children from the occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation. He then outlined the three current trials at the ICC concerning events in the Central African Republic in 2013 and 2014 and the alleged crimes committed in Darfur, Sudan, in 2003 and 2004.
The President also reiterated that the ICC was a “complementary court” and would only step in if there was “no other feasible avenue for justice.” He reminded the audience that it was “part of a global, interconnected system of justice and the rule of law.”
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