The Executive Director of Africa Legal Aid, Ms. Evelyn Ankumah has argued that the International Criminal Court (ICC) should be used as a default court to try atrocity crimes and not as a court of first instance.

Using the imagery of electricity power and a generator to drive her point home to aid better understanding, Ms. Ankumah said the normal power should be the national courts so that when the national courts fail, the powers of the ICC, which is the back-up generator would be invoked as a court of last resort.

She reiterated that in the usual course of events, one would need to use a generator only when there is a power cut from the main electricity supply, although there is a provision for a generator as an alternative power supply which connects to the complementarity principle under the provisions of the Rome Statute which established the ICC.

Article 1 of the Rome Statute in relevant parts provides that the ICC shall be a permanent institution and shall have the power to exercise its jurisdiction over persons for the most serious crimes of international concern, and shall be complementary to national criminal jurisdictions.

Ms. Evelyn Ankumah made these remarks during a panel discussion commemorating the 20th Anniversary of the ICC in in Accra on Monday.

The discussion was organized by the Africa Center for International Law and Accountability in collaboration with CDD-Ghana. The discussion, which was sponsored by Senegal-based Trust Africa, was on the theme “20 Years of the ICC: The Hits, Misses, and Prospects for Pursuing Justice for Victims of Atrocity Crimes.’’

The discussion was led by experts in international justice such as Justice Emile Francis Short, Former Judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Professor Anne Pieter Van Der Mei, Department of Public Law, Maastricht University, H.E Kabral Blay-Amihere, Former Ghanaian Ambassador to Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast and Ms. Evelyn Ankumah, Executive Director, Africa Legal Aid. The Discussion was chaired by H.E Judge Akua Kuenyehia, Former Vice President of the International Criminal Court.

Discussants included international justice experts, Members of Parliament, officials from the Executive branch of government, legal practitioners, academics, Diplomatic corps, civil society, and the media.

BACKGROUND

The ICC is an intergovernmental organization and international criminal tribunal that sits in The Hague in the Netherlands. The ICC has jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for the international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. A fourth crime, the crime of aggression, will come under the jurisdiction of the ICC when the required number of states have ratified it.

The ICC is intended to complement existing national judicial systems and it may therefore only exercise its jurisdiction when certain conditions are met, such as when national courts are unwilling or unable to prosecute those who bear the greatest responsibility for the atrocity crimes under the court’s jurisdiction.

States parties can refer a case to the ICC or the prosecutor acting pursuant to the exercise of his or her propio motu powers can bring charges against a person suspected of committing the atrocity crimes under the jurisdiction of the court. In addition, United Nations Security Council which has the responsibility of maintaining world peace can also refer a case to the ICC. The ICC began functioning on 1 July 2002, the date that the Rome Statute entered into force.