Chapter 1 - General Introduction and Some Points of Departure

Summary

CONTEXTUAL BACKGROUND

The adoption of the Rome Statute in 1998 was an international milestone that Africa embraced with great enthusiasm. African countries were the first to support the adoption of the Rome Statute and until today, the International Criminal Court (hereafter ICC or ‘the Court’) is still – to a large extent – dependent on Africa's cooperation in collecting evidence, accessing crime scenes and arresting suspects. Most of the Court's work is still focused on Africa where more than 80 percent of its investigations are taking place. On 2 February 1999, Senegal ratified the Rome Statute becoming the first country to adopt the treaty creating the Court. In January 2004, less than two years after the treaty had entered into force, the Government of Uganda became the first to refer a situation to the ICC's Prosecutor. The Prosecutor was requested to investigate crimes allegedly committed in the conflict between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF), in Northern Uganda. At the moment, 33 African countries are parties to the Rome Statute, making Africa the most represented region in the Assembly of States Parties (ASP), a body entrusted with budget, oversight and legislative powers over the Court.

Africa's initial support for international criminal justice was not coincidental. Before the adoption of the Rome Statute, Africa had had its fair share of serious violations of human rights and was already working with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in prosecuting perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi and other international crimes committed in Rwanda. From 1996, Sierra Leone experienced horrendous crimes and later sought the United Nations support in the creation of the United Nations Special Court for Sierra Leone (UNSCSL). These and many other waves of violence in different parts of Africa that preceded the adoption of the Rome Statute provided a good reason for Sub-Saharan Africa in particular to support the creation of a permanent international criminal court. However, the enthusiasm for the Court did not last for so long. The ICC Prosecutor's indictment of Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir, the President of the Republic of Sudan (2009/2010), and charges against Kenyan politicians, in particular Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto (2011) who later became the President and Deputy President of the Republic of Kenya respectively, damaged the relationship between the Court and the African Union (AU).