War Crimes Research Office Announcement
Originally Published 9 June 2011
Washington, DC June 9, 2011 —The War Crimes Research Office (WCRO) launched a new report on the International Criminal Court (ICC) yesterday at the Colombian Embassy in The Netherlands, at an event co-hosted by the Group of Friends of the ICC. The report, Expediting Proceedings at the International Criminal Court, examines means of avoiding delays in proceedings before the ICC.
In its less than one decade of existence, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has achieved a great deal, opening formal investigations into six situations involving some of the most serious atrocities seen since the birth of the Court in 2002 and commencing cases against a number of the individuals believed to bear the greatest responsibility for those atrocities. However, nearly ten years after coming into being, the ICC has yet to complete a single trial, raising concerns among States Parties to the Rome Statute and others regarding the effective functioning of the Court. Hence, while recognizing that the ICC is still a relatively young institution faced with a variety of novel substantive and procedural challenges, the aim of this report is to identify areas of unnecessary delays in proceedings currently before the Court that are likely to arise again, and suggest ways in which such delays may be avoided in the future.
The report is the fourteenth in the WCRO’s ICC Legal Analysis and Education Project, an initiative aimed at producing public, impartial, legal analyses of critical issues raised by the ICC’s early decisions. The ICC Legal Analysis and Education Project benefits from the insights of an Advisory Committee comprised of the following experts in international criminal law:
– Judge Mary McGowan Davis, former Acting New York State Supreme Court Judge and Board Member of the International Judicial Academy and the American Association for the International Commission of Jurists;
– Justice Unity Dow, Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), member of the ICJ’s Executive Committee and former judge of the Botswana High Court;
– Siri Frigaard, Chief Public Prosecutor for the Norwegian National Authority for Prosecution of Organized and Other Serious Crimes and former Deputy General Prosecutor for Serious Crimes in East Timor;
– Justice Richard Goldstone, former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR); and
– Chief Justice Phillip Rapoza of the Massachusetts Appeals Court and former Chief International Judge serving as Coordinator of the Special Panels for Serious Crimes in East Timor.
—-
For a hard copy of the report or more information, contact the War Crimes Research Office at warcrimes@wcl.american.edu, or +1 (202) 274-4067. The reports are also available online at http://www.wcl.american.edu/warcrimes/icc/icc_reports.cfm.
