Immunities and International Crimes – The Al-Bashir Conundrum

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir during the 25th AU Summit in South Africa ©KIM LUDBROOK / EPA

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir

On 13 October 2016, Professor Guénaël Mettraux and Professor John Dugard filed an amicus curiae brief before the Constitutional Court of South Africa In the matter between the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional  Development and the Southern African Litigation Center (“President Al-Bashir case”).

The proceeding are critically important to resolving the tension between a State’s obligation to respect the sovereign immunities of foreign state officials (including heads of states) and that State’s obligation to cooperate with the ICC.

In resolving this tension, Profs Mettraux and Dugard have laid down a series of important principles and effectively mapped a way out of the problem:

1. Immunities and international crimes – A brief historical overview

i. Traditional international law used to grant absolute immunity to heads of state in respect of all acts, commercial and criminal.

ii. Over time, international law started to carve out a number of exceptions to that general and absolutist principle (in particular in respect of commercial acts). This includes an exception to immunities as a defence and/or bar to jurisdiction when faced with international crimes charges (see next).

2. A customary international law exclusion of immunities as a defence and jurisdictional bar to international crimes prosecution

iii. Since at least the end of the Second World War and criminal prosecutions pertaining to that conflict, customary international law excludes the possibility for a Head of State (and other State officials) to rely on his immunity as a defence or as an objection to the jurisdiction of a court before which he appears on charges of international crimes (war crimes; crimes against humanity; or genocide).

iv. This is so whether the jurisdiction seeking to try him is a domestic or an international one. The loss of immunity in such a case is determined, not by the – national or international – character of the tribunal trying such a defendant, but by the international character of the underlying offence with which he is charged.

v. In the context of that exclusionary rule, none of the relevant instruments or relevant incidents of state practice draw a distinction between official and private acts of state officials. All conduct amounting to an international crime are encapsulated into the general exclusionary rule. Nor do these draw a distinction between sitting and former state officials. The exclusion of immunities as a defence and jurisdictional bar is absolute in its effect and pertains to any individual.

vi. Article 27 of the Statute of the ICC recognizes and gives effect to that general principle in the context of proceedings before the ICC. As a jurisdictional provision (dealing with one aspect of the Court’s jurisdiction ratione personae), Article 27 only deals with the effect (or, rather, the absence of effect) of an official position and related immunities on the jurisdiction of the Court itself. It does not regulate, nor purports to regulate, the effect of these immunities on the jurisdiction of any other court. Continue reading

Immunity for State Officials and the UN Library

UN Library New York

The Dag Hammarskjöld library in New York

Media reported at the beginning of January 2016 that the most popular book of 2015 at the United Nations’ headquarters library was a book on immunity for heads of state and state officials for serious crimes.

The Dag Hammarskjöld library in New York announced on Twitter that ‘Immunity of Heads of State and State Officials for International Crimes” by Ms Ramona Pedretti was its most-browsed book that year, prompting speculation online about why UN staff and international delegates to the UN were borrowing such a title.

Numerous online articles and reactions on Twitter suggested that the book had been borrowed by UN diplomats so as to know how to avoid prosecution in The Hague for their acts.

Politics and policy website Vox wrote: “The UN is full of delegates representing awful dictatorships, and the 2015 book that it says got checked out the most from the UN library was about … how to be immune from war crimes prosecution. That does not seem like a good thing.”

According to online sources, however, the UN library later clarified that this title was its most popular “new” book, acquired in July 2015. It had only been borrowed twice and checked out for browsing four times.

Moreover, the author of the book, Dr Ramona Pedretti commented that the book is not so much written for heads of state to avoid prosecution. On the contrary, it concludes that former Heads of State and other State officials do not benefit from immunity when charged with international crimes before foreign national courts. And although acting Heads of State cannot be prosecuted in national courts abroad according to customary international law, the book recognises that the situation is different before international criminal tribunals, where immunity for Heads of State does not bar proceedings. Continue reading