There has been a storm of criticism of the decision of Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) II of the International Criminal Court (ICC, the Court) to reject the Prosecutor’s request for authorisation of an investigation into the situation of Afghanistan. As discussed previously on this blog (see here), the basis of the PTC’s decision was that the initiation of said investigation was not in the ‘interests of justice’, in accordance with Articles 15(4) and 53(1)(c) of the Rome Statute. The criticisms have targeted almost every aspect of this decision. In particular, questions have been raised as to whether the PTC has the power to review the Prosecutor’s decision to initiate an investigation which she considered was in the interests of justice, as opposed to a decision that it an investigation is not (see here, and here). Some have also challenged the merits of this decision on various grounds, in particular, that it would introduce non-legal considerations into an assessment that has been and ought to be narrowly circumscribed, or that the PTC could not simply conduct a de novo review of the Prosecutor’s inherently discretionary decision (see here and here). Others have presented a more systemic critique that underlying this decision is the message that all that states need to do in order to avoid an ICC investigation is to refuse to cooperate with the Court (see here and here). It has also been suggested that this decision is part of a broader effort by ICC judges to control the Prosecutor’s investigative priorities (see here).
In this two-part post, we seek to contribute to the ongoing discussions by offering some thoughts on two particular points of contention. In this first post, we offer some comments on the PTC’s decision regarding the interests of justice. In particular, (a) we argue that the PTC did have the power, under Art. 15(4) of the Statute, to review whether the interests of justice should bar the opening of an investigation, and (b) while noting the problems with taking lack of state cooperation and budgetary issues into account in this decision, we argue (building on our earlier work here and here) that there might be circumstances where it is appropriate for the PTC and the Prosecutor to take such issues into account as a part of the interests of justice analysis.
Our second post will consider the way in which the PTC decision dealt with international humanitarian law, and more specifically, the territorial scope of application of war crimes in non-international armed conflicts (NIAC). Read the rest of this entry…