A crime against humanity trial in South Kivu, DRC: Proof Complementarity Can Work

When the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) exploded on the justice scene in 1993, a refreshing effort against impunity for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide began. A year later, the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) signaled that the United Nations and international community were recognizing that the accepted practice of letting mass murderers and rapists off scot free denigrated respect for the rule of law and threatened international peace and security. By 1998 the Statute for a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) was signed in Rome and the court became operational in 2002. It now has cases/situations in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Darfur region of Sudan, the Central African Republic, and Kenya.
While the ICC was being established, mixed domestic and international war crimes chambers were set up to prosecute the highest level persons accused of horrific crimes in Sierra Leone, East Timor, Cambodia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. In these courts, hacking off limbs, extermination, rape and sexual slavery, torture, forced displacement, and a slew of other heinous offenses against large numbers of innocent civilians are commonplace. (A mixed court was also set up to try murder by assassination in Lebanon).
Eighteen years since the global paradigm began to shift from blanket impunity toward accountability for the most serious international crimes, there is now broad recognition that international and mixed courts can handle only a small number of the most senior culpable civilian and military leaders and the most notorious physical perpetrators. Thousands - perhaps millions - of others will escape punishment in these specialized courts for the tens of millions of victims of atrocity crimes committed during war and brutal oppression worldwide.
It is the primary responsibility of national jurisdictions to enforce the law and punish those who break local and international laws, and only when states are truly unable or unwilling to investigate or prosecute should internationalized courts step in. This concept - known by ICC supporters as complementarity, since domestic trials 'complement' the efforts of the ICC which tries higher lever suspects typically out of reach of national courts - is well at work in some discrete areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Here, in South Kivu, a mobile gender justice court (pictured above right) has already prosecuted over 150 individuals in the past 18 months, and is currently holding a rape as a crime against humanity trial against Lieutenant Colonel Kibibi Mutware (pictured below left, in handcuffs) and 10 of his soldiers for the mass rape and other crimes committed in Fizi.
Professional military judges, prosecutors, defense counsel and civil party lawyers have been studiously adjudicating the case for over a week, and hundreds of locals have turned out daily to observe their first trial ever. They are clearly fascinated and enthralled by the process. For many, it brings a glimmer of hope for the future.
As indicated in two previous blogs (here and here), I too have been observing the mobile court trial for the past few days. During this time, I have been most impressed with the proceedings, which have been as professional and fair as many trials I've observed in international and mixed tribunals. The trial assuredly has been far more expeditious than other legitimate atrocity crimes trials, being held some 6 weeks after the crimes were committed. The local police, the UN and NGOs participated in the investigation.
Colleagues and I have asked survivors here if they've heard of the ICC, where the DRC trials of Lubanga and Katanga-Ngudjolo are underway and the Mbarushimana trial is expected to begin soon. Relatedly, Bosco Ntaganda is still at large and apparently roaming around freely in Goma. Former Congolese Vice President Bemba is on trial at the ICC for principally sex crimes committed in Central African Republic. In general, unless they listen to the radio regularly, victims and others here in this very remote area of Congo are unaware of the ICC. That is not particularly surprising, as the other trials (not including Mbarushimana, which hasn't started yet), were committed outside the Kivus. Contrarily, as my OSISA colleague Louise Olivier reported yesterday (here), some of the accused, including the leader, apparently have. Kibibi reportedly assured his troops before the orchestrated attack on New Years Day that they wouldn't go to The Hague for this.
Unquestionably, Lt Col Kabibi and his soldiers are more than a little stunned to find themselves on trial before this groundbreaking domestic mobile court. If word about the court is spread around the country, it could have an enormous impact on deterring future crimes, now that the rule of law is finally being enforced domestically, to at least some extent, in parts of eastern DRC. If other crimes could be prosecuted as seriously as gender crimes - the DRC government hates being known as the rape capital of the world - genuine progress on respecting the rule of law, maintaining order, and creating stability and prosperity is not only possible, but probable.

(credit to Galya Ruffer for photos of the Fizi trials)

International Gender Justice Dialogue

From 20-21 April, the Women's Initiatives for Gender Justice in collaboration with the Nobel Women's Initiative hosted the International Gender Justice Dialogue, in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

The goal was to bring together gender experts, feminist legal theorists, peace mediators, legal practitioners, jurists, women’s rights advocates, policy makers, members of the media, and activists to identify and develop a strategic, shared agenda for advancing gender justice around the globe.

Although most participants from Europe and Africa were unable to attend because of the volcanic eruption in Iceland (which grounded flights throughout Europe), participants from other regions gathered for a day of panels and a second day of working group discussions. Among the highlights was Women's Initiatives Executive Director and IntlawGrrl guest/alumna Brigid Inder's (pictured right) opening speech, which you can read here.
As Professor Tina Dolgopol (pictured left left), of Flinder Law School in Adelaide, South Australia, noted in her observations about the first day,

A recurrent theme is the necessity of building networks, ensuring that your work
is based on an agreed and transparent set of principles and that you communicate often with your supporters. We hear these ideas from those involved in peace processes, justice networks and from the promotion of women’s rights generally.

IntLawGrrls Kelly Askin and I spoke on a panel entitled "Prosecutions and Jurisprudence - What have we achieved and what remains to be done," along with Professor Catharine A. MacKinnon, who sent in her comments via video. The session was moderated by IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Valerie Oosterveld.

One of the areas I touched on was a project we are undertaking that will hopefully contribute to the process of how we better assess the jurisprudence coming out of the international criminal tribunals, and therefore, the impact these tribunals are having on gender justice.
In October 2008, my office (the War Crimes Research Office at American University's Washington College of Law) organized, in collaboration with the WCL's Women's International Law Program, a two-day conference on “Prosecuting Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes Before International/ized Criminal Courts.” Participants brainstormed about potential strategies and what was needed to improve the prosecution of sexual- and gender-based crimes before these tribunals. High on the list was the need for a modern, searchable, online database of cases (and related documents) coming out of these tribunals, focused on sexual- and gender-based crimes. In response to this need, last year we launched the Gender and ICL Jurisprudence Collections Project. The project has four phases:

1) collection of key decisions, orders and judgments relating to sexual and gender-based violence and making them available online so that you will be able to search them within and across courts;
2) key-wording those cases to facilitate searches relating to how these tribunals have handled cases involving sexual and gender-based violence;
3) digesting those cases with a view to highlighting the facts, allegations or factors affecting the prosecution of such crimes; and
4) providing commentaries on a select number of cases we identify as critical to understanding the development of the law in this area.

The basic aim of the project is to facilitate research in this area by practitioners, advocates and academics, but more importantly to “surface” the decisions that may go unnoticed between indictment and judgment, but which have important consequences for how sexual and gender-based violence is treated by these tribunals.
Follow outcomes from the Gender Justice Dialogue working groups here.

ICL Holiday Update

While most of us were opening presents and eating too much over the holidays, the wheels of international justice were turning. This post provides a sampling of some important events in international criminal law over the holiday season.

Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia
The ECCC concluded its first trial: that of Duch (below right), the former head of Tuol Sleng detention center where upwards of 12,000 people were detained, tortured, and executed during the Khmer Rouge era. As will be discussed in subsequent posts, Duch’s Co-Counsel advanced two contradictory defenses:

• that he should receive mitigation in sentencing for his de facto plea of guilty, remorse, acceptance of responsibility, and assistance to the prosecutors and
• that he should be acquitted because he was not one of the most responsible for the Khmer Rouge crimes and was only following orders under duress.

The ECCC Statute contains no provisions for accepting a guilty plea, so the Court was left to design ad hoc trial procedures that for all intents and purposes resulted in a full trial. It remains to be seen what the judges will do with this bizarre state of affairs; a verdict is expected this spring.
In other ECCC news, the initial judicial investigation in Case 002, which involves Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith, Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan—the four regime leaders in custody, has concluded. The parties may request additional investigative action, and the Co-Prosecutors are entitled to make a Final Submission requesting particular charges. Once these proceedings have concluded, the Co-Investigating Judges will issue their Closing Order, which marks the end of the investigation and is analogous to an indictment. The target date is September 2010. For more details on the investigative stage, see here. The Co-Investigating Judges have already indicated that, pursuant to the Co-Prosecutors’ Introductory Submission, they are investigating the following crimes: war crimes, crimes against humanity (including enforced disappearances and forced marriage), genocide, and national crimes. They also ruled that they will consider the liability of the accused according to the doctrine of joint criminal enterprise (para. 21), but only in respect to international crimes (para. 22). Ieng Sary’s effort to have Co-Investigating Judge Marcel LeMonde disqualified on grounds of bias was rejected as unsubstantiated.
After receiving the go ahead from the Pre-Trial Chamber as discussed here, the Co-Prosecutors earlier submitted Introductory Submissions with respect to five additional suspects.

The International Criminal Court
The ICC's Assembly of State Parties concluded a meeting in The Hague at which time they finalized the agenda for the first Review Conference in June 2010. Summaries of the proceedings are available here. At the meeting, delegates forwarded several proposals for amendments to the Review Conference for its consideration. These are:

1. A proposal by Liechtenstein (former Chair of the Special Working Group on the Crime of Aggression) for the inclusion of a definition of the crime of aggression. For a discussion of the text of this amendment, see our prior series on the crime of aggression.
2. A proposal by Belgium and other states to add several weapons crimes (including employing poison weapons, asphyxiating gases, and expanding bullets) to the provisions addressing non-international armed conflicts. (These acts are already prosecutable before the ICC when committed within an international armed conflict.)

The Dutch proposal to include a placeholder provision on terrorism (discussed here) was not adopted. Delegates indicated that they might revisit the issue once an omnibus definition of terrorism existed under international law.

Gender Justice at the ICC
At the recent ASP meeting, the Women’s Initiative for Gender Justice -- at which 3 IntLawGrrls guest/alumnae, Brigid Inder, Kate Orlovsky, and Katrina Anderson (prior post) work -- presented its fifth quasi-annual Gender Report Card for 2009, The report revealed that the ICC has reached gender parity in professional staffing. (Indeed, 53% of judges are now female.) The report also recounts progress in adjudicating gender violence and protecting victims and witnesses in the situations under consideration by the Court and how the Trust Fund for Victims has managed its funds.

The Ad Hoc Tribunals
Upon an appeal by the Prosecutor, the ICTY Appeals Chamber quashed the Trial Chamber’s acquittal in Prosecutor v. Šljivančanin on one count and increased the sentence of for crimes committed against Croatian civilians at Vukovar Hospital. The ad hoc tribunals allow the Prosecutor to appeal an acquittal and achieve a conviction before the Appeals Chamber without further possibility of review. Šljivančanin (right) filed a motion for reconsideration on the ground that he should be entitled to appeal the new conviction in keeping with international human rights principles. In response to Šljivančanin’s motion for reconsideration, the Appeals Chamber ruled that settled jurisprudence made clear that no additional appeal was allowed. Although this jurisprudence is indeed settled, it has remained contentious.
The right to appeal was not in the Charters of the Nuremberg or Tokyo Tribunals. Article 26 of the Nuremberg Charter, for example, held that:

The judgment of the Tribunal as to the guilt or the innocence of any Defendant … shall be final and not subject to review.

By contrast, Article 17 of the Charter of the Tokyo Tribunal provided only that an appeal of sorts could be lodged with the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, General MacArthur. Although the defendants exercised this right, MacArthur upheld the verdicts, prompting the unsuccessful habeas petitions to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The modern tribunals depart from this previous practice. Indeed, as discussed above, the rules of these tribunals provide that both the defence and the prosecution can appeal adverse judgments. A new verdict is not inevitable, however; it is possible that the Appeals Chamber will order a retrial. For example, Rule 117C of the ICTY Rules of Procedure and Evidence provides that “in appropriate circumstances the Appeals Chamber may order that the accused be retried according to law.”
The right to appeal a criminal conviction is enshrined in many international human rights treaties. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, for example, provides at Article 14(5) that

Everyone convicted of a crime shall have the right to his conviction and sentence being reviewed by a higher tribunal according to law.

Article 2(2) of the more recent Seventh Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, however, strikes a balance between the right to an appeal and the demands of expedient and efficient justice by making allowances for situations in which an individual is convicted following an appeal against an acquittal. Protocol No. 7 to the 1950 European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, E.T.S. 117. To be sure, these human rights treaties are addressed to domestic criminal proceedings and, as such, are not directly applicable to the international tribunals. The ICTR, however, has noted that

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is part of general international law and is applied on that basis. Regional human rights treaties, such as the European Convention on Human Rights and the American Convention on Human Rights, and the jurisprudence developed thereunder, are persuasive authorities which may be of assistance in applying and interpreting the Tribunal’s applicable law. Thus, they are not binding of their own accord on the Tribunal. They are, however, authoritative as evidence of international custom.

Barayagwiza v. Prosecutor, Case No ICTR 97-19-AR72, Decision, para. 40 (Nov. 3, 1999).
Some commentators and judges have argued that the Appeals Chambers should order a new trial after a Trial Chamber’s acquittal is impugned. In particular, this has become a recurring point of disagreement between Judge Fausto Pocar (Italy, at left) and his colleagues on the ICTY/R Appeals Chamber. In several cases, Judge Pocar strongly dissented in favour of remitting the case back to the Trial Chamber for further determination. See, e.g., Rutaganda v. Prosecutor, Case No ICTR-96-3-A, Judgment (26 May 2003) and Semanza v. Prosecutor, Case No ICTR-97-20-A, Judgment (20 May 2005).
In Galić, for example, Judge Pocar argued:

[T]he Appeals Chamber is bound to uphold an accused’s right of appeal enshrined in international law as reflected in Article 14 (5) of the [ICCPR]. Thus, * * * the Appeals Chamber’s intervention * * * to correct errors committed by a Trial Chamber must be interpreted so as to comply with the fundamental human rights principle that any conviction and/or sentence must be capable of review by a higher tribunal according to law. While Article 25(1) of our Statute affords the Prosecution the possibility of lodging an appeal that seeks an increase in sentence, this provision does not allow for an exception to the Appeals Chamber’s obligation to guarantee the fundamental right of appeal under Article 14 (5) of the ICCPR. As stated by the Human Rights Committee of the ICCPR, although the applicable law in a jurisdiction may allow for a person to be convicted and sentenced by the higher court in that jurisdiction, “this
circumstance alone cannot impair the defendant’s right to review of his conviction and sentence by a higher court.

Prosecutor v. Galić, Case No IT-98-29-A, Partially Dissenting Opinion of Judge Pocar, para. 2 (Nov. 30, 2006).
In other developments, the trial of Vojislav Šešelj (right) re-commenced before the ICTY this month. The trial has been marred by disruptions from the defendant, including a hunger strike; concerns about witness intimidation; and a contempt conviction against Šešelj. In the past, Šešelj has indicated he does not intend to call any witnesses on his behalf.
The ICTR acquitted Father Hormisdas Nsengimana of genocide. Nsengimana had been accused of being involved in an attack on Tutsis and supervising roadblocks installed to identify and eliminate Tutsis.
On grounds of alibi, the ICTR also reversed the conviction of Protais Zigiranyirazo, who had been convicted of genocide and extermination pursuant to a joint criminal enterprise. (He has also been implicated in the murder of Dian Fossey in light of his financial interests in gorilla tourism, which Fossey opposed). Both defendants were ordered released.

Roundup of Even More ICL News
The International Criminal Law Interest Group of the American Society of International Law -- for which IntLawGrrl Kelly Askin serves as C0-Chair, and yours truly as Secretary -- recently circulated its newsletter addressing other developments this year. The newsletter is available here.

The 3d IHL Dialogs

As readers will recall from this post, IntLawGrrls and the American Society of International Law were among the proud cosponsors of the Third Annual International Humanitarian Law Dialogs (above), held last week in Chautauqua, New York.

The IHL Dialogs provide the opportunity for international criminal prosecutors –- from as long ago as Nuremberg through the (all too many) present-day criminal tribunals –- to exchange ideas privately, to meet with other international humanitarian law scholars and practitioners, to recharge their batteries, and to share programs with the public. It is a small public, as the 135-year-old Chautauqua Institution, a lovely upstate community beside the lake of the same name, generously opens its doors to us sat the end of its nine-week season of lectures, concerts, classes, and recreation programs.
This year the theme was “Honoring Women in International Criminal Law: From Nuremberg to the ICC.” It is no exaggeration that this theme arose with IntLawGrrls founder Diane Marie Amann, who (diplomatically) blogged in 2007 about the absence of women prosecutors at the First International Humanitarian Law Dialogs. David Crane, the main force behind the Dialogs and the first prosecutor at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, replied at once with a comment. The choice of this year's theme indicates that he heard Diane loud and clear.

The Dialogs were preceded by a reception at the Robert H. Jackson Center in nearby Jamestown. Gracing this reception was onetime Nuremberg Prosecutor H.W. William Caming (above right, talking with me), who had not attended the first two Dialogs. He honored his fellow former Nuremberg prosecutor, Henry T. King Jr., who had spoken so movingly last year and passed away at age 89 this spring.
We IntLawGrrls – and our friends – were well represented:

► Diane gave a keynote lecture that arose out of her “Women at Nuremberg” blog series (below). She illustrated her talk with fascinating photographs, found painstakingly in archives, as well as personal history about the women, found even more painstakingly. (Be sure to read the text, in the Proceedings to be published by ASIL.)

► Professor Leila Nadya Sadat of Washington University School of Law chaired a panel of current prosecutors, ICC Deputy Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, ICTY Deputy Prosecutor Norman Farrell, SCSL Deputy Prosecutor Joseph Kamara, and ICTR prosecutor Alphonse Van.

► As depicted below, IntLawGrrl Kelly Askin of the Open Society Justice Initiative chaired a panel composed of current and former women prosecutors; from right to left, Renifa Madenga of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Christine H. Chung of the International Criminal Court, and Lesley Taylor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

► ASIL Executive Director Betsy Andersen gave a eulogy for Alison Des Forges, the Human Rights Watch researcher, and closed the Dialogs by reading aloud the prosecutors' Third Chautauqua Declaration of the prosecutors, reprinted below.

► Yours truly introduced the keynote dinner speaker, Patricia M. Wald, former ICTY Judge and Chief Judge of the District of Columbia Circuit (among many other things), who spoke about what women victims need and expect from the international criminal tribunals.

►Former ICC prosecutor Chung, in addition to serving on the panel described above, introduced one keynote luncheon speaker, Siri Frignard, a current Norwegian international criminal prosecutor and a former East Timor prosecutor.

► Other keynoters were Minnesota State Judge Marilyn J. Kaman, who served as an international judge for the U.N. Mission in Kosovo; John Q. Barrett, who spoke about Katherine B. Fite, the (perhaps) leading woman lawyer at Nuremberg; and Eli Rosenbaum of the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations.

The panels and talks went hand-in-hand with opportunities for the prosecutors, IntLawGrrls, ASIL membersm and others to chat over a meal, on a walk, or while rocking on the front porch of the century-old Athaeneum Hotel.
As a sponsor, IntLawGrrls thanks all the other sponsors and organizers, especially Professor Crane, the Syracuse University College of Law, and Impunity Watch; Greg Peterson, Chair of the Jackson Center, and his family; Adam Bratton, Executive Director of the Jackson Center; Carol Drake, who makes everything run at the Jackson Center; Professor Sadat and Washington University's Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute; and Professor Michael Scharf and Case Western's Frederick K. Cox International Law Center, and organizer of the glorious post-conference cruise on Lake Chautauqua.

Go On! IntLawGrrls cosponsors 3d IHL Dialogs, on "Women in International Criminal Law"

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia of interest) Delighted to announce that for the 1st time ever, IntLawGrrls is cosponsoring an international law conference!
It's the 3d Annual International Humanitarian Law Dialogs, to be held August 31-September 1 at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, a community near Buffalo in upstate New York.
As posted here and here, last year's dialogs marked the 60th anniversary of the Convention Against Genocide; the 1st year, the 100th anniversary of the 1907 Hague Rules on the laws of war. This year's theme -- "Honoring Women in International Criminal Law From Nuremberg to the ICC" -- is ready-made for IntLawGrrls the world over. It's no surprise, then, that a number of 'Grrls were enlisted as the event was put together by our colleague David M. Crane, formerly Prosecutor at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, now law professor at Syracuse University College of Law.
Our thanks to David, who's also the founder Impunity Watch blog (one of the "connections" in our righthand column), both for the invitation and for welcoming IntLawGrrls blog as a cosponsor. Also cosponsoring are the Robert H. Jackson Center in nearby Jamestown, N.Y., which features the work of the Supreme Court Justice who served as Chief U.S. Prosecutor at the Nuremberg trial of the Major War Criminals, Impunity Watch/Syracuse Law, the American Society of International Law, the Enough Project of the Center for American Progress, the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at Washington University School of Law, and the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Events on the program include:
Monday, August 31:
► Opening remarks, including a moment of silence for Dr. Alison Des Forges, the Human Rights Watch researcher who died in a plane crash this past February, as we then posted.
►Keynote lecture entitled "Katherine Fite, A Prosecutor at Nuremberg," by John Q. Barrett, Professor of Law at St. John's University School of Law, New York, and Elizabeth S. Lenna Fellow at the Robert H. Jackson Center in Jamestown, New York. As Barrett will detail, Katherine Boardman Fite, who'd received her law degree from Yale in 1930, served as Jackson's assistant.
► Keynote lecture entitled "Women at Nuremberg," by me, IntLawGrrl Diane Marie Amann, Professor of Law and Director of the California International Law Center at King Hall, University of California, Davis, School of Law, and an ASIL Vice President. The presentation will be based on my IntLawGrrls series of the same name.
► An update from the current prosecutors, to be moderated by Leila Nadya Sadat, Henry H. Oberschelp Professor of Law and Director of the Harris Institute at Washington University School of Law, St. Louis. That institute's namesake, former Nuremberg prosecutor Whitney R. Harris, also is expected to attend these 3d annual dialogs.
► Luncheon speech by Gayle E. Smith (left), a cofounder of the Enough Project who's now a Special Assistant to President Barack Obama. Introducing her will be Colin Thomas-Jensen, a policy advisor at the Enough Project.
► Roundtable discussion with the prosecutors on "Gender Crimes at the International Level," moderated by IntLawGrrl Diane Orentlicher, Professor of Law at American University's Washington College of the Law.
► A briefing by Sadat on the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative about which IntLawGrrls has posted here and here.
► Dinner speech by the Honorable Patricia M. Wald (right), formerly Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and, subsequently, a Judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Introducing Judge Wald will be IntLawGrrl Lucy Reed, ASIL President, Freshfields partner, and a member of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission, about which she's posted.
► Showing of NBC's The Wanted, with members of the cast.
Tuesday, September 1:
► "International Criminal Law Year in Review," presented by Michael P. Scharf, Professor of Law and Director of the Cox Center.
► "Reflections on Women in International Criminal Law," by the Honorable Marilyn J. Kaman (below right), Presiding Judge, Probate/Mental Health Court, Hennepin County, Minnesota, and from 2002-2003 a U.N.-appointed judge in Kosovo, where she presided over cases involving war crimes, organized crime, ethnically motivated disputes, and human trafficking.
► Roundtable with 3 women who've worked as international trial attorneys: Christine H. Chung, partner at Quinn Emmanuel and former senior trial attorney, Office of the Prosecutor, International Criminal Court (prior post); Lesley Taylor, Special Court for Sierra Leone; and Renifa Madenga, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Moderated by Dr. Kelly Askin, IntLawGrrl and Senior Legal Officer, International Justice, Open Society Justice Initiative.
► Lunch speech by Siri Frigaard (above left), Chief Public Prosecutor, Norwegian National Authority for Prosecution of Organised and Other Serious Crime. Former ICC attorney Chung will introduce her.
► Elizabeth Andersen, ASIL Executive Director, will lead the signing of the 3d Chautauqua Declaration.
Prosecutors expected to attend, besides those already named, include: Fatou Bensouda (below left), ICC Deputy Prosecutor (prior posts here and here); William Caming, former trial counsel at Nuremberg; Desmond DeSilva, former Prosecutor at the Special Court for Sierra Leone; Richard Goldstone, formerly the ICTY-ICTR Chief Prosecutor and a Justice on the Constitutional Court of South Africa, and currently leading a U.N. inquiry into the 2008-2009 conflict in the Gaza Strip; Hassan Jallow, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda; Robert Petit, Co-Prosecutor of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia; and Stephen Rapp, Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone since 2006, and now, as we've posted, President Barack Obama's nominee to become the U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues.
For details, contact Carol Drake at cdrake@roberthjackson.org.

Go On! Crimes against humanity experts meet

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia of interest) Dozens of international criminal law experts will gather in St. Louis, Missouri, next week for a meeting on the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative about which we posted a while back. Spearheading the 2-year project aimed at drafting a multilateral treaty codifying the proscription against crimes against humanity is our colleague Leila Nadya Sadat, Henry H. Oberschelp Professor of Law and Director of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at Washington University School of Law, which is sponsoring the experts' meeting along with the American Branch of the International Law Association and the American Society of International Law.
As is detailed in the agenda, crimes-against-humanity topics that will be examined include:
► Legal, social, and historical context;
► Legal issues;
► New conceptual paradigms; and
► Enforcement issues.
Participants include Sadat, of course, as well as the following IntLawGrrls and IntLawGrrl guests/alumnae: yours truly, Kelly Askin, Valerie Oosterveld, Diane Orentlicher, and Naomi Roht-Arriaza. Among the many other experts taking part in the closed roundtable discussion include: M. Cherif Bassiouni, chief drafter of the draft treaty; former international prosecutors Richard Goldstone (ICTY), David Crane (Special Court for Sierra Leone), and Whitney R. Harris (Nuremberg); Clint Williamson and David Scheffer, current and former U.S. Ambassadors at Large for War Crimes Issues; ASIL Executive Director Elizabeth Andersen; and Africa Legal Aid Executive Director Evelyn Ankumah. The complete list is here.

Influence the ICC

The International Criminal Court is currently accepting nominations for judges. The nomination period opened July 21 and will remain open until October 13; elections will be held at UN Headquarters in New York, January 19-23, 2009. If you know of any individuals from ICC state party countries who would be good candidates, particularly women, please encourage them to get involved (typically by having their government nominate them). The nomination period closes in less than a month!

In the past, vetting the nominees and supporting the best candidates through letters and events profoundly impacted the quality and the sex of the judges nominated and elected. It is particularly critical to collect information on the current nominees and, if the pool is inadequate, to ensure additional qualified candidates are promptly put forward. (credit for photo of ICC courtroom)

A few numbers to consider:

► So far, 10 persons have been nominated to fill 6 judge slots. Click here to see the names of the candidates and basic information about them.

► Of the 6 judges leaving the court due to expirations of their term (including Judge Navi Pillay, who was recently appointed the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights), only 1 judge, Fumiko Saiga from Japan, is eligible for re-election.

► Of the 12 judges remaining on the court before elections, 6 are male and 6 are female.

► Of the 10 nominees to the ICC, 6 are female.

Women’s and human rights organizations, scholars, and individuals have been hugely instrumental in the past in ensuring that there is greater gender parity on the Court and that good, qualified women are nominated. Having high quality women on the Court, including those with expertise in gender violence, has significantly and dramatically impacted the gender jurisprudence emerging from each of the war crimes tribunals – female judges have sat on the groundbreaking cases recognizing rape as an instrument of genocide, a crime against humanity, a crime of war, a means and form of torture, persecution, and enslavement, among many other advances.

The ICC Statute is historic in including rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, gender-based persecution, and trafficking (particularly of women and children) as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Court is mandated to investigate and prosecute gender crimes and to have fair representation of men and women as judges, and within its staff.

In each of the current situations before the ICC – the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Darfur, and the Central Africa Republic – sexual violence has been part and parcel of the crimes committed in those conflicts, even though all of the charges have not necessarily reflected this fact in some of the DRC cases.

Help ensure that the pool of qualified candidates for the ICC, including stellar female candidates, is increased and that the best judges are elected in January. Feel free to contact me directly at KAskin@JusticeInitiative.Org if you want more information. Get involved!

Go On! "Reforming Laws on Sexual Violence"

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia of interest.) In October 2000 the UN Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, however the questions surrounding sexual violence and how the law ought to respond in order to both prevent and punish sexual violence continues to be contentious in both the international and domestic legal systems.

On 27 June 2008 the Centre for Criminal Justice and Human Rights, University College Cork (Ireland) will hold a conference entitled "Reforming Laws on Sexual Violence: International Perspectives," at which international and domestic experts will consider questions and issues relating to legal responses to sexual violence. The papers presented will consider the treatment of sexual violence in ad hoc tribunals, sexual violence and peacekeeping, transitional justice and responses to sexual violence, and the reform of the Irish criminal legal system in this relation.

This one-day conference is supported by the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and forms part of Ireland’s chair of the Human Security Network. Full conference details, including booking form, are available here. Conference speakers include:

► Judge Teresa Doherty (Special Court for Sierra Leone)
► Kelly D. Askin (Open Society Initiative, and an IntLawGrrl)
► Prof. Doris Buss, Carleton University, Canada
► Amira Khair Khair, ICC Women/Sudan
► Madeleine Rees, Head of Women’s Rights and Gender Unit, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
► Col. Ben Klappe, Military Judge/Judge in the District Court Arnheim/Netherlands Defence Academy
► Lt. Col. Oliver Barbour, Irish Defence Forces (GBV Consortium)
► Prof. Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, University of Minnesota/Transitional Justice Institute, University of Ulster
► Prof. Penny Andrews, Valparaiso University (USA)/La Trobe University (Australia)
► Dr. Milena Pires, Timor-Leste

► James Hamilton, Director of Public Prosecutions
► Dr. Tom O’Malley BL, National University of Ireland, Galway
► Pauline Walley, Senior Counsel

Details on registration here.

Int(Crim)LawGrrls & co.

Pleased to announce that the new leadership of the International Criminal Law Interest Group of the American Society of International Law includes 2 IntLawGrrls.
Here're the results of group elections, just held in anticipation of ASIL's annual meeting, set for April 9-12 in Washington:
IntLawGrrl Kelly Askin (near left), Senior Legal Officer, International Justice, Open Society Justice Initiative, has just been elected co-chair; she'll serve with our colleague, Linda Malone (far left), Marshall-Wythe Foundation Professor of Law and Director of the Human Rights and National Security Law Program at William & Mary Marshall-Wythe School of Law, Williamsburg, Virginia.
IntLawGrrl Beth Van Schaack (far right), Santa Clara University School of Law, is the group's new secretary. Treasurer is Jason Manning of Davis Polk & Wardwell; Newsletter Editor, Najwa Marie Nabti (near right), Associate Legal Officer, Office of the Prosecutor, Appeals Unit, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Congratulations to all, and heartfelt thanks our colleague and outgoing group co-chair, Jordan Paust of the University of Houston Law Center.

On January 19, ...

... 1943, the Netherlands' Crown Princess Juliana gave birth to a daughter, Princess Margriet, in a hospital room that had been declared Dutch territory though it was located in Ottawa, Canada. The birth occurred during the Dutch royal family's exile in Canada during World War II. Soon after the war ended, in 1948, Juliana became Netherlands' queen; today Margriet's eldest sister, Queen Beatrix I, reigns. The Canadian Broadcasting Co. says of the arrival of Margriet, shown in the family photo at right as an infant in her mother's arms: "The first royal baby to ever be born in North America, the historic birth helped forge a bond between Canada and the Netherlands that endures to this day."
... 1946, the Charter for the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, which would try Japanese persons accused of war crimes during World War II, was adopted. A comparison of this Tokyo Charter to that of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg is set forth in this excerpt from War Crimes Against Women: Prosecution in International War Crimes Tribunals (1997), by IntLawGrrl Kelly Askin.

Welcome new IntLawGrrls Stephanie Farrior, Kelly Askin, and Jenny S. Martinez

Completing a new wave of arrivals to our blog, we're delighted to announce the arrival of 3 more IntLawGrrls: Stephanie Farrior (right), Kelly Askin (below left), and Jenny S. Martinez (below right).
Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Applied Human Rights Research at Pennsylvania State University's Dickinson College of Law in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Stephanie's a leader in the field of international human rights law. She's the former Legal Director and General Counsel of the London-based NGO Amnesty International, a founding board member of the San Francisco-based NGO Center for Justice & Accountability, and a member of the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law. Her recent scholarship includes studies of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women and of women refugees. Stephanie's chosen Goler Teal Butcher (1925-1993), onetime Howard University Law Professor, State Department official, and head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, as her IntLawGrrls transnational foremother.
Dr. Kelly Dawn Askin is the Senior Legal Officer, International Justice, with the Open Society Justice Initiative in New York. In addition to teaching and serving as a visiting scholar at Notre Dame, Washington College of Law, Harvard, and Yale, Kelly's served as Executive Director of the International Criminal Justice Institute and American University’s War Crimes Research Office, as a legal advisor to the judges of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, and as an expert consultant, legal advisor, or international law trainer to prosecutors, judges, and registry at those tribunals and others in East Timor, Sierra Leone, and Cambodia, as well as at the International Criminal Court. She's published extensively on international criminal law, international humanitarian law, and gender justice, and serves on the board of several organizations, including the Executive Board of the American Branch of the International Law Association, the International Judicial Academy, and the International Journal of Criminal Law.
Jenny is an Associate Professor of Law and Justin M. Roach, Jr. Faculty Scholar at California's Stanford Law School. Jenny's scholarship examines ramifications of the recent prolifteration of international tribunals. In a 2004 oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court, she represented José Padilla, the Brooklyn-born man who, as posted here, spent years in incommunicado military custody as an "enemy combatatant." She's worked as a consultant for the NGOS Human Rights First and the International Center for Transitional Justice.
Heartfelt welcome!