A Seven Year Assessment of the International Criminal Court: Congressional Panel

Event Description

The twentieth century was the bloodiest on record, with some 174 million people killed in genocides and mass murders, and justice for most victims never came. This was a congressional panel hosted by Citizens for Global Solutions on 17 July 2009, International Justice Day and seven years after the Rome Statute entered into force, on the record of the International Criminal Court and the case for U.S. engagement with it. The recording above is the first part of Benjamin Ferencz’s remarks; the other parts are linked below.

Senator Dodd’s office helped organize the briefing, at a point when 109 nations had ratified the treaty. Patricia Wald summarized the report of an American Society of International Law task force: move toward constructive engagement, send an observer to the 2010 review conference in Kampala, review the bilateral immunity agreements, name one government point of contact, and amend or repeal the American Service-Members’ Protection Act. Tod Lindberg made a pragmatic case, noting that the United States allowed the 2005 Darfur referral and that the court had acted cautiously. Ferencz urged that aggression be made a punishable crime.

Speakers

• Benjamin Ferencz, former Nuremberg prosecutor
• The Hon. Patricia Wald, former judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia; chair of the American Society of International Law task force on the court
• Tod Lindberg, Hoover Institution
• Don Kraus, CEO, Citizens for Global Solutions

Recordings

• Don Kraus introduces the panel
• Ben Ferencz, part 1
• Ben Ferencz, part 2
• Patricia Wald, part 1
• Patricia Wald, part 2
• Tod Lindberg, part 1
• Tod Lindberg, part 2

Policy Focus

The International Criminal Court and U.S. policy toward it. The panel weighed engaging with the court before deciding whether to join, passing domestic law so that U.S. courts could try the same crimes, and defining the crime of aggression at the 2010 review conference.

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