Today we had the opportunity to spend the entire day at the International Criminal Court. The International Criminal Court is given jurisdiction by the Rome Statute, allowing them to prosecute individuals for genocide, war crimes, crimes of aggression and crimes against humanity. A typical case moves from the preliminary examinations to investigation, pre-trial, trial, appeals and finally enforcement of the sentence. The ICC will only prosecute when nation-state governments are unwilling or unable to prosecute. The ICC does not have a police force of its own, so it relies on cooperation from the nations who signed the Rome Statute to capture these criminals to be tried. The ICC has an agreement with the United Nations to take on cases that the United Nations would be unable to prosecute.
The ICC is a high security facility, so we had to present our passports, get visitors badges and go through security before we could enter the actual building. In the front of the building is a visitors center, where we spent about 30 minutes being taken through the center by an audio guided tour. The tour gave us basic information about their mission, how the legal process works in an international court and how they protect witnesses testifying at trials. We then moved into a room for a presentation that went a little bit more in depth on the legal system, what crimes are prosecuted and their current cases and trials. The most interesting thing that came out of the presentation was that many of the individuals accused of these crimes had been held for several years before their trial. Much of this has to do with the fact that sometimes they only had one opportunity to arrest the individual, but in many ways coming from a legal system where you are innocent until proven guilty, this method seems odd.
What I was most excited for during the whole trip was the fact that we would have time to watch the pre-trial for Al Hassan. Al Hassan is a Mali national accused of both war crimes and crimes against humanity which in part included enforcing strict Sharia law. To enter the main courtroom, you must go through another round of security, and you cannot take anything like a bag or phone inside with you. The public viewing box is positioned above the courtroom and behind glass. Each chair has a set of headphones that you can set to your language to listen to the court case and have it translated into either English or French, which are the two official languages of the court. We sat and watched about 30 minutes of the trial that was filled with legal jargon setting precedence for the prosecution's case against Al Hassan.
Since we were expecting to have a library tour, we left the courtroom to meet back up with our cohort. Unfortunately, since we were running behind schedule from the mornings activities, we had to wait another hour and a half for our tour of the library. There is a small cafe inside the visitor’s center of the ICC, so we all stopped to grab lunch there. A few of us played hangman and telephone Pictionary to pass the time before our tour of the library started. The library is comprised of thousands of legal texts and informational books that are used in ICC cases. They have a relatively small archive started with transcripts and other related material from cases, but much of that archive is digital. The library and archives are not open to the public.
As soon as we were done with our tour of the library, quite a few of us headed back to the courtroom to watch the last 45 minutes of the trial for the day. The prosecution had moved on to presenting evidence implicating Al Hassan in the war crimes and crimes against humanity. They had video footage of officers under Hassan’s control destroying mosques and presented the story of a man who had his hand amputated in the town square as punishment for stealing food from a store. The judge allowed the prosecution to go about 15 minutes beyond the normal allotted time for the day to finish presenting this portion of their case. Once the case is done for the day, a security officer escorts you out of the courtroom.
During Autumn quarter, I took a class on business law and as part of an assignment we had to pick a case and watch it at the King County Superior Court in Downtown Seattle. Having the ability to have watched court cases in two different countries in a pretty amazing opportunity. The biggest difference I noted was how frequently the ICC would close the courtroom to the public for periods of time, which is not something that happens very often in the American legal system. However, they often are dealing with sensitive information and witnesses that could be put in danger if their information was released to the public. Overall, the way the actual court proceedings are run are not really that different than the American legal system, with the exception of the fact that the ICC is composed of three judges instead of just one.