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ICC Prosecutor meets with League of Arab States Secretary General and with Egyptian foreign affairs minister; Sudanese statement to UN Human Rights Committee; European Parliament visit to Darfur; US officials talk about US cooperation on Darfur

12 July 2007

Dear all,

Please find below excerpts from media articles on the ICC Prosecutor's
meeting with the Secretary General of the League of Arab States Mr. Amr
Musa and with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt; the statement of
a Sudanese official before the UN Human Rights Committee and an article
on the recent visit of European Parliament members' to Darfur.

This digest also includes a press release from U.S. Rep. Gary L.
Ackerman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the
Middle East and South Asia, who joined a bipartisan effort to encourage
the Bush Administration to cooperate with the International Criminal
Court (ICC) on the situation in Darfur; and an interview by the Council
on Foreign Relations of John Bellinger III, Legal Adviser to the
Secretary of State, who stated that "within the bounds of U.S. law,
there would be authority to provide assistance to the ICC."

Please take note of the Coalition's policy on situations before the ICC
(below), which explicitly states that the CICC will not take a position
on potential or pending situations before the court. The Coalition,
however, will continue to provide the most up-to-date information about
the ICC.

With regards,

Mariana Rodriguez Pareja

CICC Spanish Information Services Coordinator and Latin America Analyst

[email protected]

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I. ICC PROSECUTOR MEETS WITH ARAB LEAGUE SECRETARY GENERAL AND EGYPTIAN
MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS TO DISCUSS DARFUR

i. "Arab League chief says progress made regarding Darfur," BBC
Monitoring Middle East/ Egyptian news agency MENA, 7 July 2007 (link
unavailable)

"Tangible progress over the Darfur dossier has been made, Arab League
Secretary-General Amr Musa said Saturday. In statements following a
meeting with Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC)
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Musa said 'we are in touch with the Sudanese
government regarding any development on Darfur.' Musa expressed hope
that further progress would be made regarding the Darfur issue. ..."

ii. "Egyptian foreign minister discusses Darfur with ICC chief
prosecutor," BBC Monitoring Middle East/ Egyptian news agency MENA, 7
July 2007, http://www.sis.gov.eg/En/EgyptOnline/Politics.htm

"Foreign Minister Ahmad Abu-al-Ghayt received Saturday the chief
prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo.
Moreno-Ocampo is visiting to get posted on Egypt's assessment of
conditions in the western Sudanese region of Darfur and ways to propel
efforts aimed at the peaceful settlement of the crisis there. In view of
Egypt's regional influence, he said, it can play a constructive role in
establishing peace and ending fighting in Darfur. For his part,
Abu-al-Ghayt said the visit is part of continued consultations by Egypt
with all effective parties concerned with the Darfur file to encourage a
political settlement to the crisis in Darfur."

II. SUDANESE OFFICIAL TELLS UN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE THAT MILITARY AND
POLICE OFFICERS BEING JUDGED FOR DARFUR CRIMES

"Military officers being sentenced for Darfur crimes - Sudan," Sudan
Tribune, 12 July 2007, http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article22803

"Sudan on Wednesday told a key UN human rights panel that it was
handling cases against military and police officers accused of crimes in
Darfur, and insisted that the International Criminal Court had no
jurisdiction over them.

In a hearing before the UN Human Rights Committee, Sudanese officials
reiterated that their country had not signed up to the International
Criminal Court.

They insisted that the country's own judicial system was coming to grips
with cases of murder, torture and rape in Darfur, while new draft police
and army laws, and other measures overseen by the international
community were expected to have a deeper impact.

'There is no complicity on the part of the state. Some state
representatives were implicated and the government has refused to grant
any impunity,' Sudanese government official Mustafa Matar told the
18-member UN legal panel. 'Our courts are doing quite well,' he
said...."

III. EUROPEAN UNION: A FAMINE IS LOOMING IN DARFUR

"Sudan; New Warning of Famine in Darfur," Africa News, 11 July 2007,

http://allafrica.com/stories/200707110781.html

"A famine is looming in Darfur, according to members of the European
Parliament who have just returned from a visit to the war-ravaged
Sudanese province.

The 785-strong Parliament will vote Thursday on a resolution urging that
European Union governments impose targeted economic and diplomatic
sanctions -- such as a travel ban and an asset freeze -- on Sudanese
figures implicated in the ongoing violence in Darfur.

Representatives of the Sudanese government that met the MEPs had claimed
that there was a "Hollywood plot" of Western antipathy to Sudan, he
said. ...

The MEPs are demanding, too, that Sudan should hand over Ahmad Muhammad
Arun, its humanitarian affairs minister, and Ali Kushayb, a Janjaweed
leader, to the International Criminal Court....

Lotte Leicht, director of the Brussels office of Human Rights Watch,
criticised EU governments for failing to impose effective sanctions
against Khartoum.

She argued that the Union should be identifying what assets the Khartoum
authorities and those linked to them have in Europe so that they can be
frozen. A precedent for carrying out an investigation had been set by
the Union when it tracked the foreign interests of former Yugoslav
dictator Slobodan Milosevic and his family, she noted.

'If the EU is not even doing its homework, then that only leads Khartoum
to one conclusion: the EU is not serious so why should we change?' she
told IPS.

Portugal, the new holder of the European Union's rotating presidency,
should 'articulate loud and clear,' she added, that 'full cooperation
with the ICC' is essential.

'Sudan must surrender the humanitarian minister and the other indictee,
who is already in custody,' she said. 'We are not talking about people
who are on the run.'

IV. ACKERMAN CALLS FOR JUSTICE IN DARFUR AND COUNCIL ON FOREIGN
RELATIONS INTERVIEW WITH JOHN BELLINGER

i. "Rep. Ackerman calls for justice in Darfur," US Fed News, 12 July
2007, http://www.house.gov/list/press/ny05_ackerman/PR_071107b.html

"U.S. Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D-Queen/L.I.), Chairman of the House
Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, today
joined a bipartisan effort to encourage the Bush Administration to share
with the International Criminal Court (ICC) all the information it has
related to the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity in
Darfur.

'The United States was the first to declare the atrocities in Darfur a
genocide, and it is the Administration's responsibility to support the
Court as it develops its case against those who are responsible for
these gross crimes against humanity,' said Ackerman....[The ICC] arrest
warrants represent concrete steps in ensuring accountability for the
atrocities committed in Darfur."

ii. "The Capital Interview: Bellinger says International Court flawed
but deserving of help in some cases," Council on Foreign Relations, 10
July 2007,

http://www.cfr.org/publication/13752/capital_interview.html?breadcrumb=%
2Fpu

blication/publication_list?type=interview

"The Bush administration's rejection of the International Criminal Court
(ICC) and its use of Guantanamo Bay facilities to house 'unlawful
combatants' have damaged the country's reputation as a human rights
standard bearer. Washington has recently softened its approach to the
ICC and continues to gradually reduce the number of detainees at
Guantanamo. John B. Bellinger III, legal adviser to the U.S. secretary
of state, says that while Washington is not necessarily 'warming' to the
ICC, it has sought to clarify that the U.S. government agrees with the
objectives of the court. In the case of Guantanamo Bay, Bellinger says
the State Department is 'working very hard' to repatriate some of the
Guantanamo detainees as well as exploring different options for holding
others seen as posing a threat to the United States.

Question: I'd like to start with Darfur and the International Criminal
Court. The Bush administration has said it would consider assisting the
ICC's work in Darfur. What does that mean in practice and does it
include helping to track down the two Sudanese indictees?

John Bellinger: We do see a role for the International Criminal Court in
certain cases, including in particular the case of Darfur. For that
reason we did not object to Security Council Resolution 1593, which
referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC. So as a matter of
principle, we have supported the ICC's investigation and prosecution of
the cases in Darfur. At the same time we have the restrictions in U.S.
law and the American Service Members Protection Act, which prohibit as a
general matter any U.S. assistance to the International Criminal Court.
There is an exception which has not been tested, and whose parameters
are not clear, which permits assistance to the ICC to bring to justice
certain named individuals as well as other foreign nationals who have
committed war crimes, genocide, or crimes against humanity. So we think
that within the bounds of U.S. law, there would be authority to provide
assistance to the ICC.

We have not been asked by the prosecutors for any specific help, so
therefore it's difficult to say in advance that we would say 'yes' to
any request, but we have said that because of our particular concern
about the situation in Darfur and the need to ensure accountability for
those responsible that we would seriously consider providing assistance
in response to an appropriate request.

Q: So in terms of the specific request, when the prosecutor recently
came before the Security Council and asked for help, the U.S. couldn't
respond to that in a specific way?

JB: Correct. People have in the past and for some period of time asked
us generally for assistance. We have responded generally by saying that
we would be prepared to assist within the bounds of U.S. law and in
response to a specific request, but it would depend whether the type of
assistance was something that we had and could appropriately provide. I
think the main point that we're conveying is that U.S. concerns about
the ICC are well known, but that we acknowledge that in certain cases we
would be prepared in principle to help the ICC in a situation like
Darfur where there seems to be no other way to provide accountability
for those who have committed crimes.

Q: Given the strong U.S. opposition when the statute creating the ICC
came into force five years ago, there is now this offer of cooperation.
What has changed? Has there been a chance to assess how it's performing
so far? Does it not necessarily seem as politically motivated?

JB: No, I don't think that's it. I understand that this has been the
view of many ICC supporters all along-that as long as the ICC as an
institution continues to behave reasonably; the United States will warm
to it. I don't think that's an accurate characterization. I think what's
happened is we've made clear that not only this administration, but the
Clinton administration had concerns about the ICC and the Rome Statute
from the time that the statute was completed, and that we object to its
purported coverage of the United States, even though we're not a party.
Nonetheless, we certainly agree with its overall ends-there's no doubt
about that....

What we've clarified over the last couple of years is that the
controversy over the ICC had become really a tempest in a teapot where
there should be no doubt that the United States shares the same goals of
ICC supporters, which is to bring to justice and end impunity to those
who have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide,
and that what we have therefore been clarifying in the last couple of
years is not just that the ICC and its prosecutors have behaved
unobjectionably, but that there can be specific cases like Darfur where
the United States sees a role for the ICC. So we continue to be
concerned about its purported jurisdiction over us-that was a concern
shared by the Clinton administration. That's why President Clinton did
not submit the Rome Statute to the Senate, but we nonetheless see that
the ICC has a role in a case like Sudan.

Q: Clinton did at the last minute sign the Rome Statute. Officials like
[former Clinton administration ambassador at large for war crimes] David
Scheffer said that it would be a good idea to be inside trying to work
for change. This is a similar-in a different context-approach of some
towards the UN Human Rights Council. What do you make of that argument
about working from the inside versus the outside?

JB: Well, many of us at the State Department believe it is better to be
inside a tent working for change rather than outside. That, as a general
principal, is probably correct but it doesn't fit in every circumstance
and in a circumstance like the Human Rights Council, which is so
fundamentally flawed and which we were concerned at the outset was going
to be so fundamentally flawed that we adopted a wait-and-see attitude.
We sadly believe that we have been proven correct-that in fact the Human
Rights

Council has pursued an agenda of not going after human rights abusers,
but instead protecting them. We think that it is not an organization we
would be able to have an impact on by being on the inside, and we don't
think that would have changed had we been part of it over the last year.

Q: The U.S. has been generally a big backer of ad hoc tribunals. But
some say these courts do little to deter rogue regimes from flagrant
violations or committing genocide. What is your response to that?

JB: Well, it's a good point that we have been supporters of these ad hoc
tribunals-it's one of the things that Secretary [of State Condoleezza]
Rice and I have tried to emphasize when people suggest that the United
States is not committed to the cause of international criminal justice
because of the controversy over the ICC. In fact, we have been the
biggest political and financial supporter of these other ad hoc
tribunals: the ICTY [for the former Yugoslavia], the ICTR [for Rwanda],
the special court for Sierra Leone over the last decade. We've provided
more than half a billion dollars of U.S. taxpayer money to continue to
support them politically and we think [these tribunals] do have a
significant impact. The fact that they may be ad hoc, we think,
nonetheless continues to send a signal to perpetrators of human rights
violators in the countries involved in these cases, but also to other
human rights violators around the world, that they will be brought to
justice.

In certain cases we would be prepared in principle to help the ICC in a
situation like Darfur where there seems to be no other way to provide
accountability for those who have committed crimes.

Secretary Rice personally worked very hard with respect to bringing
[former Liberian President] Charles Taylor to justice, a case that
actually ties back together with the ICC to ensure that Charles Taylor
did not live out his days in Nigeria but was ultimately brought to
justice. We felt that having this special court for Sierra Leone to try
him in Africa could be destabilizing to the region, and we therefore
supported the use of the ICC facilities in The Hague for use of the
special court for Sierra Leone to try him."

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CICC's policy on the referral and prosecution of situations before the
ICC:

The Coalition for the ICC is not an organ of the court. The CICC is an
independent NGO movement dedicated to the establishment of the
International criminal court as a fair, effective, and independent
International organization. The Coalition will continue to provide the
most up-to-date information about the ICC and to help coordinate global
Action to effectively implement the Rome statute of the ICC. The
Coalition will also endeavor to respond to basic queries and to raise
Awareness about the ICC's trigger mechanisms and procedures, as they
Develop. The Coalition as a whole, and its secretariat, do not endorse
or promote specific investigations or prosecutions or take a position on
Situations before the ICC. However, individual CICC members May endorse
Referrals, provide legal and other support on investigations, or develop
Partnerships with local and other organizations in the course of their
Efforts.

Communications to the ICC can be sent to:

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P.O. box 19519

2500 cm the Hague

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