The report entitled \u201cResilient Justice\u201d looks back on the three years he had been in post, reporting on progress on his vaunted 10-point strategic plan, including point 10: \u2018Improve the working environment of the Office and ensure a respectful working culture\u2019. Its introduction though is penned jointly by the two deputy prosecutors. \u201cReferences to the ICC Prosecutor are few and far between,\u201d notes Sergey Vasiliev of the Open University. \u201cIt feels as if the institutional \u201cerasure\u201d of the third ICC Prosecutor has begun,\u201d he says, \u201ceven before the current improvised, imperfect, and non-transparent investigation process has run its course\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Times are tough. Deputy Prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang spoke to the diplomats<\/a> at the start of this year\u2019s Assembly of States Parties (ASP) about \u201cmeeting a challenge for which we have prepared ourselves and which we will face united and determined\u201d, while Nazhat Shameen Khan, the other deputy prosecutor, delivered the annual report to an audience including journalists, discussing the need to \u201cdisplay resilience in the face of quite difficult and challenging circumstances\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those circumstances include US sanctions on the three top members of the court\u2019s prosecution team, also against six judges making up one third of the ICC bench, plus sanctions on Palestinian organisations feeding information for the court\u2019s investigations. The court\u2019s Japanese president, judge Tomoko Akane noted<\/a> separately that ICC judges, herself included, are subject to arrest warrants from the Russian Federation and have been indicted which \u201cwill have an obvious impact on their personal security\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Against that highly pressurised backdrop, questions running in the corridors of the ASP were how far the meeting would be overshadowed by the media frenzy detailing the sexual misconduct allegations, and how far states would decide to support the court. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Maria Elena Vignoli of Human Rights Watch had been concerned that \u201cthere was a real risk\u201d that the sexual misconduct investigation would have \u201csucked the air out of an ASP, where the air was very much needed to push for support for the court.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Only one side event was held to discuss working environment issues. Alix Vuillemin of Women\u2019s Initiatives for Gender Justice was one of the organisers. She told the room<\/a> that while \u201cnone of us are blind to how painful this discussion is, how painful this topic is and has become\u2026 avoiding this conversation will not protect the court\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The person who has brought the complaint against prosecutor Khan attended the event, sitting at the back of the large hall. She asked to remain anonymous and shared with Justice Info a statement she had been prepared to make if asked. She wanted the leadership of the court to stop hiding behind procedure and start \u201cconfronting its failures openly and honestly\u201d saying \u201cthere is an elephant in this room and no amount of polished words will make it go away\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Vuillemin told Justice Info that \u201cwhat we had as a secondary aim of this panel was to address the \u2018elephant in the room\u2019, without talking about the elephant itself. We could not have an entire ASP go by, we felt, without having at least a side event to address the broader issues.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The misconduct investigation \u2013 delegated to UN investigators by the president of the ASP, Finnish ambassador to Brussels Pa\u00efvi Kaukoranta \u2013 has no end date yet in sight. More than a month ago, she told her colleagues<\/a> that while \u201cshe shared the frustration of the length of the proceedings\u201d she also \u201casked for patience\u201d because \u201cintervening in the investigation would risk the integrity of the process\u201d. It is rumoured that the report may be delivered at the beginning of 2026.\u00a0It will be then sent to an ad hoc panel of three judges, whose names aren\u2019t public, to consider the established facts to determine whether misconduct \u2014 if any \u2014 has occurred.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vuillemin acknowledges that \u201cthe process may not be perfect, but it\u2019s the process that we have\u201d. And \u201cas civil society at least, the only thing we can do is call for more transparency, and for the process to be clearer: Why is it taking so long? Why are there no deadlines?\u201d\u00a0Vasiliev though, is concerned that already, despite the lack of an outcome, \u201csome states and other actors feel quite ready simply to \u2018move on\u2019 and \u2018turn the page\u2019\u201d.\u00a0 Whatever the panel\u2019s determinations, some states see the whole affair as \u201ctoxic\u201d he says, partly because it has dragged on for too long. This attitude is \u201cproblematic\u201d he says, because \u201cit risks disconnecting the possible removal of an elected official from the very allegations that triggered the investigation. It opens the door to unrelated considerations being invoked to render his return unlikely or impossible; this is unacceptable and would set a troubling precedent\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\t The usual rhythm of an ASP is a last-minute nail-biting discussion on the budget where it often comes down to \u201cstates fighting over a zero point zero something percent,\u201d says Vignoli. This time though was \u201cstrange\u201d because it was \u201cso quick\u201d. Mainly, she thinks, because \u201cthe court was really conservative in its request\u201d. \u201cThe court has been clear that it\u2019s taking all the measures it can to weather the various threats and attacks that are coming its way\u201d, she continues. The budget was positioned as \u201cpart of the multi-tiered strategy to protect the court\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There were noticeably fewer NGO representatives at this year\u2019s event. Around 200 members of the coalition for the international criminal court (CICC) attended this year compared to around 300 last year, confirmed Zoe Paris the coalition advocacy head. \u201cThe entire delegation of CICC members from DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo] had their visas rejected, representing 60 people\u201d, she told Justice Info.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For some situations, there is still no apparent progress from the prosecution, which \u201ccontinues to betray victims in the northeast of Nigeria\u201d says Matt Cannock of Amnesty International pointing to the prosecutor\u2019s own decision five years ago that all the criteria has been met, and that there was no prospect of complementarity. \u201cThat limbo is intolerable\u201d, he says. \u201cVictims expectations are completely going down and it\u2019s almost a forgotten situation\u201d, he adds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For the first time states debated non-cooperation. With arrest warrants being ignored by Hungary<\/a> and Mongolia<\/a> and with no resolution yet on Italy\u2019s failure to transfer a Libyan suspect<\/a>, this was an opportunity to get states to \u201cdiscuss their own responsibilities to enforce non-cooperation findings,\u201d says Vignoli, underlining that individual bilateral states relationship can be a powerful tool. Human Rights Watch and others wanted states to \u201ccommit to their obligations to execute all of the arrest warrants,\u201d and said they are watching out for any attempt to carve out exceptions during peace negotiations \u2013 that would be \u201ca bit of a slippery slope,\u201d says Vignoli.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But nothing very concrete came out of this debate. Antonia Pereira de Sousa, from the court\u2019s registry, repeated details of the channels of communication for states to use in order to \u201cavoid a status on non-cooperation\u201d. The ASP president rounded the discussion up, stressing that it was the \u201cfirst of a kind\u201d intended to be \u201cpositive\u201d despite being about \u201cvery sensitive issues\u201d. She concluded by calling on states to abide by the rules they had set up for themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Deputy prosecutor Khan said that in the last period \u201cwe saw the highest number of arrest warrants issued, with 17 new public warrants since 2023, and several more under seal that of course we may not speak of\u201d. \u201cLast year we all thought that 2026 would be a year with empty courtrooms\u201d. Instead, she points to the arrest of former Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte, and a few hours later came the announcement of the transfer of a Libyan suspect from Germany<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prospects though for further big arrest warrants look unlikely. Nazhat Shameen Khan played down expectations, saying that while she does not \u201canticipate that there will be a decreased demand for the investigative work of the office,\u201d she does see \u201ca need for us to really focus on organising our work efficiently. And it means being very, very careful about selection criteria, being very careful about selecting parts of investigations to prioritise. We have to accept that investigations cannot go on forever\u201d. \u201cWe can\u2019t keep coming back to states parties and say, look, this year we want over three new situations, and we have no people to do the investigation. It\u2019s a question of being very realistic\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One year ago, at the last ASP<\/a>, the court\u2019s president warned that US sanctions were coming. In the meantime, \u201cstates parties have not been entirely anaemic in the face of this \u2018doomsday scenario\u2019,\u201d says Vasiliev with what looks like \u201cstrenuous diplomatic and organisational efforts behind the scenes to secure the Court\u2019s viability and operations.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\nNo discussion on sexual misconduct <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
No discussion on the budget\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
No Congolese NGOs and No Nigeria Investigation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
No further forward on non-cooperation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s now a question of \u201cbeing very realistic\u201d\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
No rocking the boat (but not drowning)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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