My Adventures at the Assembly of States Parties

I have just arrived back in D.C. after spending three days at the Assembly of States Parties meeting of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in New York City.  For some highlights and my reflections on this extraordinary experience, read on....

Highlights

Day One:  The Tenth ASP kicked off with speeches from UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, the President of Botswana, and current ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, among others.   Pillay reasserted the important role the Court has played over the past decade in deterring tyrants around the globe.  Ocampo recounted the Court's work over his nearly nine-year tenure and noted that the "shadow of the Court" has helped to deter those who would commit atrocities around the globe.  Finally, the President of Botswana gave an excellent speech in which he not only called on fellow African nations to support the ICC, but also pointed the finger at those members of the U.N. Security Council who have exercised their veto power unjustly due to "politics." (Russia and China should be reminded of this the next time there is a Security Council vote on Syria.) 

Fatou Bensouda of Gambia was elected as the new chief prosecutor of the ICC. She is the first woman and the first African to hold this important post.  Having an African woman hold this position not only allows for an important perspective on gender crime cases being investigated by the ICC, but will also hopefully ease criticism that the Court is solely targeting crimes in Africa.

Day Two:  I heard Prosecutor-Elect Bensouda speak at a luncheon sponsored by the Women's Initiative for Gender Justice rolling out their gender report card on the ICC.  In her first public speech since her election, Bensouda stressed that she will make sure gender crimes are always taken into account by the ICC; heartening news indeed!

After Bensouda's inspiring speech, I was brought back to reality by the slow and cumbersome decision-making process in international organizations (not totally unlike the U.S. Congress), when the election of ICC judges began. This complicated procedure involves a mind-boggling array of voting requirements to ensure geographic, gender, and other types of representation among judges.  (As of Wednesday night only three judges out of the six needed had actually been elected, and the day was spent with multiple rounds of balloting yielding no results and waiting for the tallying and announcement of votes.)  However, I'm pleased that qualified judges were elected from the Philippines, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Czech Republic.  Hopefully more progress will be made on this front soon.

However, my frustration dissipated that evening when I got to shake hands with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at a reception hosted by the Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC).  The Secretary-General paid tribute to the work of the ICC, and it was exciting to get to meet him and listen to his remarks.   Meeting Ban Ki-moon was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and rekindled my enthusiasm for the work that I do every day.

Day Three: The morning was dedicated to statements from representatives of various ICC member states, some of which were very interesting and even inspiring.  My favorite remarks came from the representative from Ghana, who emphasized the importance of the Responsibility to Protect, asserting that countries must be party to the ICC to truly support the principle.  The Netherlands' representative said that peace and justice are complimentary requirements, and the representative from the Philippines simply stated "never again to impunity."  I couldn't agree more.

My Final Impressions

Looking back on my time at ASP, I think two experiences stand out to me most of all.  During his remarks at the opening session, Prosecutor Ocampo-who I had the privilege to meet when he was in D.C. last year to speak with U.S. government officials-made a powerful statement that the 100 million (yes, 100 million) people killed in the 20^th century due to genocides and crimes against humanity did not die in vain, for the international community today is moving towards a world in which all civilians are truly protected.  This is what the ICC is really all about-and that was important for me and other attendees to remember during the seemingly endless hours of waiting for judicial election results to be tallied.

But the memory from ASP that will likely stay with me the longest was of a more personal nature.  While waiting for a vote to be completed during the judicial elections on Day Two, I struck up a conversation with a British conference participant sitting next to me.  As it turns out, he was one of the original drafters of the Rome Statute in 1998, and was back to observe the progress the Court has made in the years since its creation.  Not only that, but he once lived in the same small village in England where my mother was born and raised.  It occurred to me that this man might have walked down the street and said hello to my grandmother several decades ago, and now here we were sitting side by side at the ASP conference a continent away, assessing the success of an international body which didn't even exist back then.  It was a small but telling reminder for me of just how connected our world has increasingly become.  Wherever we come from and whatever path our lives take, we are, truly, all global citizens.