Side Events at the 15th ICC-ASP Session: Developments and Boundaries in Core International Crimes Practice and the Launch of the Cooperation and Judicial Assistance Database

The side event ‘Crimes Against Humanity, Sex Crimes and Command Responsibility: Developments and Boundaries in Core International Crimes Practice’ was co-hosted by Norway, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Kingdom and CILRAP on 18 November 2016. The chair, H.E. Ambassador Martin Sørby (Norway’s Ambassador to the Netherlands) asked the panellist three rounds of questions regarding the effect of recent legal, institutional and policy developments on 1) prosecution of sexual and gender-based violence (‘SGBV’), 2) characterisation of crimes against humanity, and 3) the standards to establish command responsibility of the accused before the International Criminal Court (‘ICC’) and national courts.

In their response, the panellists welcomed the judgement of the ICC Trial Chamber in Bemba as a much needed source for future SGBV prosecutions and capacity building. They found, however, the judgment to have missed the opportunity to reinforce ICC jurisprudence on command responsibility by not discussing the mental element of ‘should have known’. Domestic prosecutions were seen as important efforts to combat impunity for SGBV crimes locally. States have set ambitious goals such as adopting in their domestic prosecutions the ICC practice on victim participation; panellists cautioned there are substantial resource challenges in achieving such goals. They commended the ICC for its exposition, in recent judgments, on the elements of crimes against humanity such as the 'policy requirement', 'nature of attack', 'organisational requirement' and systematicity.

In the second side event on 21 November 2016, the Cooperation and Judicial Assistance Database (CJAD) was dedicated to the ICL public commons. The event was co-hosted by Norway, CILRAP, the University of Nottingham Human Rights Law Centre, the International Nuremberg Principles Academy, and the Chinese Initiative on International Law. CJAD aims to provide a central information hub on all aspects of co-operation legislation to facilitate the drafting of national legislation and effective co-operation.

Justice Klaus Rackwitz (Director of the International Nuremberg Principles Academy), the chair of the event, emphasised that co-operation of States Parties is essential for the efficient functioning of the ICC, and that CJAD can help to streamline such co-operation. Justice Rackwitz further added that access to legal resources is vital in the fight against impunity and the ICC Legal Tools Database is playing an essential role. Professor Morten Bergsmo (Director, CILRAP) said that the Database forms the core of the public commons of international criminal law, with a collection of more than 115,000 documents and no less than 4,485,037 hits so far in 2016. Mr. Amady Ba (Head of International Cooperation Section, ICC Office of the Prosecutor) welcomed the development of CJAD as it will facilitate both the drafting of national legislation on co-operation with the ICC and the work of his Office. Professor Olympia Bekou (Deputy Director, CMN, and Head of the International Criminal Justice Unit, University of Nottingham Human Rights Law Centre) said CJAD is designed to be accessible through a low-bandwidth internet connection on a computer or a mobile phone so that States facing infrastructural or resource challenges could also benefit from it. She officially launched CJAD while concluding that it will help States fulfil their obligations to the ICC, support the process of drafting national implementing legislation, assist civil society in monitoring the status of implementing legislation, ensure harmonisation and consistency of State co-operation with the ICC, and encourage and enhance comparative research.