18TH SESSION OF THE ASSEMBLY OF STATES PARTIES TO THE ROME STATUTE
Day 5 (6 December 2019)
Name of the Event: Paths to Justice and Accountability for Venezuela: Ongoing Initiatives by the International Community (Side Event co-hosted by the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, Defiende Venezuela and Sin Mordaza).
Overview by: Kelly van Eeten, Junior Research Associate PILPG-NL
Main Highlights:
Rodrigo Diamanti, President of Un Mundo Sin Mordaza, noted that Venezuela has the second-largest migration crisis in the world and the situation gets worse every day.
The office of the Prosecutor at the ICC proactively seeks information from various UN bodies and mechanisms, including the recently established Fact-Finding Mission.
Summary of the Event:
Simon Adams, Executive Director of Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, opened the panel discussion by explaining the context of the crisis in Venezuela. Génesis Dávila, founder and president of Defiende Venezuela, followed him and explained six different cases Defiende Venezuele worked on involving torture of the civilian population. She explained that in all cases, civilians were detained without an arrest warrant and were tortured during the period they were detained.
Monika Le Roy, Advisor to the Secretary General of the Organization of American States, took over from her and explained that the situation in Venezuela did not occur overnight and was a slow process in open sight. She referred to several rapports on the situation in Venezuela. Jared Genser, Adjunct Professor of Law from Georgetown University Law Centre, continued by stating that the crisis is impacting almost the entire population of Venezuela. He noted that millions of Venezuelans are suffering from the lack of food and medicine.
Génesis Dávila, on a personal note, talked about how she kept losing weight while she was in Venezuela, since it is impossible to keep a healthy diet. She told the story of a 23 year old boy who had been detained for 15 days in the back of a truck with about 20 other students. He had told Génesis that his wards had randomly took one of them out of the truck and brought him to another truck with regular detainees. The wards forced the regular detainees to hit the student so hard that the truck moved. If the truck did not move the inmates would be beaten themselves. The students were tortured in other ways too, for instance their food included itching powder, they were attacked with tear gas, and their own faeces and urine were poured over them.
José Miguel Vivanco, Director of the American Division of Human Rights Watch, stated that the Venezuelan government uses its judicial system to prosecute opponents. He has been advocating on an international level, since he believes they have no chance to have a secure and proper investigation at a local level.
Xabier Agirre, Head of Investigative Analysis Section at the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC, stated that there are five pages on the situation in Venezuela in the recently published report on Preliminary Examination Activities of the Prosecutor. To continue with the ongoing preliminary examination, the OTP proactively seeks information from various UN bodies and mechanisms, including the recently established Fact-Finding Mission. Jared Genser and Xabier discussed the time span that the preliminary examination into Venezuela had cost.
Rodrigo Diamanti, President of Un Mundo Sin Mordaza, showed heart-breaking pictures of the crisis. He said that Venezuela has the second-largest migration crisis in the world and that the country has collapsed. More than 80 percent of the inhabitants have no access to clean water and more than 60 percent have less than 6 dollars a month.