Day of International Criminal Justice

Today, 17 July, is the Day of International Criminal Justice, which marks the adoption of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1998.  

The concept of international criminal justice 

International criminal justice is premised on the idea that ‘[c]rimes against International Law are committed by men, not by abstract entities, and only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provisions of International Law be enforced’. Accordingly, not only entities such as States, international organisations, and armed groups, but also individuals can and should be held accountable for violations of international law.  

The origins of modern international criminal law lie in the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials held after the Second World War. These were followed, in the 1990s, by ad hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda set up by the United Nations (UN) Security Council. With the ICC, the world’s first permanent international criminal court was established, bringing to fruition decades-long efforts to institutionalise international criminal justice. 124 States are parties to the Court, which has jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the crime of aggression.  

It operates in complementarity to national courts, including those exercising universal jurisdiction over serious international crimes – such as war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity – absent any link to the alleged conduct. The exercise of universal jurisdiction by domestic courts over international crimes is an important tool to ensure that perpetrators of acts that ‘shock the conscience of humanity’ cannot find safe haven in third countries.  

While international law is not always respected, especially when it comes to situations of armed conflict, there have been important developments with regards to international criminal justice.  

Overview of recent developments 

On 26 June 2024, the ICC convicted Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud, a former member of the Islamic Police linked to the armed groups Ansar Dine and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in Mali, of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed between April 2012 and January 2013 in Timbuktu, northern Mali. 

Around the same time, Pre-Trial Chamber I of the ICC unsealed an arrest warrant first issued in 2017 against Iyad Ag Ghaly, allegedly the ‘undisputed leader’ of Ansar Dine, also for war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Timbuktu and Aguelhoc from January 2012 to January 2013. The suspect has yet to be surrendered to the Court.  

With respect to the Court’s ongoing investigation into the Situation in the State of Palestine, which was first opened in March 2021, on 20 May this year, the ICC Prosecutor, Karim Khan, applied for the issuance of arrest warrants against five Israeli and Hamas leaders – Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant, Ismail Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar, and Mohammed Deif. They are suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Israel and Gaza from at least 7 October 2023.  

Pre-Trial Chamber I is expected to issue its decision on the applications in the coming weeks, pending an amicus curiae submission by the United Kingdom on the Court’s jurisdiction with respect to Israeli nationals, which has to be filed by 26 July.  

As regards international crimes committed in the context of the war in Syria, there have been several trials before domestic courts, including on the basis of universal jurisdiction, resulting in the first convictions in Germany in 2021 and 2022.  

For example, in January this year, a Dutch court in The Hague sentenced a former member of the pro-government Liwa al-Quds militia to 12 years’ imprisonment for illegal arrest and complicity in torture. At the end of May, the Paris Criminal Court sentenced three high-ranking Syrian government officials, including the former head of Syria’s Air Force Intelligence Directorate, to life imprisonment in absentia over the 2013 disappearance, torture, and killing of two French-Syrian nationals. In June, the Paris Court of Appeal confirmed an arrest warrant against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad over a 2013 chemical weapons attack in Ghouta, outside the capital Damascus, which reportedly employed the nerve agent sarin.  

There have also been trials over crimes committed by the Islamic State armed group in Syria and Iraq, including against the Yazidi minority; a first conviction of genocide against the Yazidis was handed down by a Frankfurt court in 2021.  

Several investigations and proceedings remain ongoing in Germany, Sweden, and Belgium, amongst other countries.  

In addition, the UN General Assembly has set up a dedicated body, the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism to Assist in the Investigation and Prosecution of Persons Responsible for the Most Serious Crimes under International Law Committed in the Syrian Arab Republic since March 2011 (IIIM), for purposes of collecting evidence that can be shared with national authorities for purposes of criminal prosecution. A Security Council-mandated mechanism, the Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh/ISIL (UNITAD), has been operational in Iraq since 2018 with the consent of the Iraqi government; its mandate is set to expire in September this year.  

Turning to Ukraine, the ICC Prosecutor opened an investigation into the Situation on 2 March 2022, less than a week after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February. In March 2023, arrest warrants were issued against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights, for the alleged war crimes of unlawful deportation and transfer of children from occupied Ukrainian territory to the territory of the Russian Federation from 24 February 2022 onwards.  

On 24 June this year, Pre-Trial Chamber II of the Court issued arrest warrants against Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, then the Defence Minister and Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, respectively. They stand accused of the war crime of directing attacks against civilian objects, the war crime of causing excessive incidental harm to civilians or damage to civilian objects, and the crime against humanity of other inhumane acts, all allegedly committed in the time period from at least October 2022 until March 2023.  

There are also efforts to establish a special tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine given that, absent Russia’s consent, the ICC is barred from exercising its jurisdiction in this regard.  

Regarding Sudan, in 2005, the UN Security Council referred the Situation in Darfur to the ICC, and an investigation was opened shortly thereafter. In 2009 and 2010, two arrest warrants were issued against then-President Omar al-Bashir for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in the Darfur region between at least 2003 and 2008; he was deposed in 2019 and never handed over to the Court. The trial of Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, who was allegedly a leader of the Bashir-aligned Janjaweed militia, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur between 2003 and 2004 commenced in April 2022 and remains ongoing; he voluntarily surrendered to the ICC, having fled to the Central African Republic following the overthrow of Omar al-Bashir.  

In April 2023, fighting erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) armed group, and in July that year, Karim Khan confirmed that his Office’s mandate to investigate the Situation remains ongoing. On 30 January 2024, he told the UN Security Council that according to his ‘clear assessment[,] … there are grounds to believe that presently Rome Statute crimes are being committed in Darfur’ by both the RSF and the Sudanese military. On 11 June, Khan published a video message calling on States and civil society organisations to provide information and evidence ‘relating to the ongoing atrocities being inflicted on the civilian population across Darfur’ to the Court.  

The Diakonia IHL Centre fully supports all fair and genuine efforts at holding perpetrators of international crimes to account, including in proceedings before the ICC and trials before impartial domestic courts on the basis of universal jurisdiction. International criminal justice must be enforced universally and consistently. No one is above the law, and all victims and survivors are entitled to justice and accountability. 

The Diakonia IHL Centre calls upon all parties to armed conflicts to comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law (IHL) and all other provisions of international law. Third States must exert pressure on the parties to prevent and stop ongoing violations, and when it comes to certain especially serious international crimes, either try alleged perpetrators before their national courts or hand them over for prosecution elsewhere. States parties to the Rome Statute must cooperate with the ICC, including by handing over suspects against whom an arrest warrant has been rendered.