HRW URGES SUPPORT FOR ICC FROM MEMBER COUNTRIES

The Human Rights Watch has implored International Criminal Court countries to provide supportive decisions to the global justice body.

The human rights watchdog group has said in a statement that this is important for the delivery of justice for the world’s worst crimes.

Zambia is among countries, which recently chose not to act on calls by Amnesty International for the arrest of former American President, George Bush on claims of human rights atrocities.

President Michael Sata stated that there were no grounds for Zambia to act in the positive to the calls because of insufficient grounds as well as lack of an ICC indictment.

The Human Rights Watch has also observed that the ICC faces a higher demand than ever following the addition of investigations in Libya and Côte d’Ivoire to the court’s workload this year.
This call comes in the eve of the annual session of the Assembly of States Parties, which begins on 12^th December at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

And during the respective session, the 119 member countries, including four new members, will take part and they are expected to elect the next ICC prosecutor, a milestone in the court’s development.
Elizabeth Evenson, Senior International Justice Counsel at Human Rights Watch, has said for many victims of mass atrocity, the ICC symbolises the last best hope for justice.

She has therefore urged ICC member countries to use the New York meeting to ensure the court has what it needs to get the job done.
The ICC assembly is expected to elect by consensus, Fatou Bensouda, a Gambian, who is also deputy prosecutor,  to succeed the court’s first prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo of  Argentine.