00:00The International Criminal Court opened in 2002 in The Hague in the Netherlands.
00:11With a mission to investigate and bring to trial individuals charged with the gravest
00:15crimes when the countries involved did not have the commitment or the capacity to bring
00:20them to justice themselves.
00:22The ICC takes on cases involving four types of crimes.
00:27Cases of aggression by one country against another, war crimes, crimes against humanity
00:37and genocide.
00:40It is composed of 18 judges, senior judicial officers and lawyers elected from the member
00:46countries with a mandate of nine years.
00:48Its most important section is the Office of the Prosecutor, which conducts investigations
00:53and prosecutions.
00:56Once an investigation is complete and suspects arrested, the court can, in theory, organise
01:01a trial and sentence those found guilty.
01:04However, in reality, the ICC conducts its mission under extremely difficult conditions.
01:10124 countries are members of the court, but dozens of others don't recognise it, notably
01:15the United States, China, Russia and Israel.
01:22Some member states don't always cooperate, depending on the political context.
01:27The investigators therefore lack the means to do their work.
01:30Witnesses can be put under pressure.
01:33An arresting suspect is often a challenge because the ICC does not have its own police
01:38force.
01:39It is thus dependent on the goodwill of the member states.
01:42If a suspect is in the territory of a country which doesn't recognise the authority of the
01:46court, there is virtually no chance of the person being arrested.
01:50And some member countries don't honour their obligation to arrest suspects.
01:55These factors explain, in part, the mixed results of the ICC.
01:59Of some 30 cases launched since its creation, nearly half are still ongoing, essentially
02:05because the suspects are still at large.
02:08Less than half of the arrest warrants issued since 2002 have been executed.
02:14So in the final analysis, the court's rate of conviction is low.
02:18Over some 20 years, it has found 11 accused, all of them African, guilty, with four others
02:24acquitted.
Comments