18TH SESSION OF THE ASSEMBLY OF STATES PARTIES TO THE ROME STATUTE
Day 2 (3 December 2019)
Name of the Event: Side Event: The prosecution of economic and financial crimes: towards an extension of the ICC’s jurisdiction? (Hosted by the Association Francaise pour la Promotion de la Compétence Universelle)
Overview by: Kelly van Eeten, Junior Research Associate PILPG-NL
Main Highlights:
Panelists argued that the ICC should start with the prosecution of economic crimes, financial crimes and ecocide and should also start looking into grand corruption.
Looking at grand corruption could offer the ICC and international lawyers some help in understanding how and why atrocity crimes are committed, particularly in the countries that are in state of kleptocracy.
Summary of the Event:
Elise Le Gall, attorney at law and founder of Association Française pour la Promotion de la Compétence Universelle opened the event together with Laureen Bokanda-Masson ,attorney at law. Mr. Oliver Windridge, lawyer and senior advisor for the UK The Sentry, started with an introduction on the Sentry, an NGO co-founded by John Prendergast and George Clooney. The Sentry is an investigative and policy team that investigates dirty money connected to African war criminals and war profiteers. The countries they work on have a few important things in common: they have a lot of resources, the population lacks access to basic facilities and the top leaders are extremely wealthy.
One of Mr. Windridge’s main points was the analysis on the following question: when we talk about the expansion of crimes under the jurisdiction of the ICC, who are we targeting, and who are we going after? The professional enablers might be an interesting category. They are almost always outside the country in conflict and provide for example business, financial, and legal advice. However, is this what the States Parties signed up for? They might see businessmen from their own countries being indicted to the gravest crimes.
He closed with listing four questions he thinks the ICC should keep in mind while investing a situation:
Does the country have national resources?
Is it a long running conflict?
Do the leaders or elite have wealth?
Is there involvement of foreign businesses around these leaders?
Mrs. Sunčana Roksandić Vidlička, assistant professor at Zagreb University, was the second speaker and her presentation was titled:Serious Economic Crimes as Crimes against Humanity: a new mandate for the ICC? When she started working on this topic in 2011/2012 there was not a lot of literature and research available. She stated that she is happy to see the increase in research involving this topic, which creates more knowledge and awareness. According to Sunčana, the ICC’s honeymoon phase is over and our community does not have the same enthusiasm as it once had. She stated that the prosecution of economic crimes, financial crimes, and ecocide for the ICC might get this “honeymoon phase” back. She continued by explaining how Article 7(1)(k) of the Rome Statute is a plausible means to prosecute these crimes without violating the principle of legality, by applying the laws listed in Article 21 of the Rome Statute.
Mr. Richard J. Rogers, lawyer and founding partner of Global Diligence, was the last person to present and he stated that there has been too little discussion on how grand corruption can influence the most serious human rights violations, namely mass atrocities. According to him, the prosecutor should start considering grand corruption in its investigations. He listed several characteristics of grand corruption, namely the following acts by the elite: manipulation of state operators for their own gain, the banning of opposition, control over their own MP’s, closing down of civil society, manipulation of judges and prosecutors and the misuse of the policy and the army. He called countries with these practices a ‘kleptocracy’ and stated that these kleptocracies are working together to get more wealth, while the international laws on state sovereignty give them protection. He gave several examples of countries with grand corruption, with Sudan as a striking one. Mr. Rogers stated that grand corruption oiled the wheels for genocide in Sudan.