ICC commences search for new chief prosecutor

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The International Criminal Court (ICC) has commenced on the search for a new prosecutor as the term of the current chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda will expire on 15 June 2021.

Fatou Bensouda is serving her second tenure in office after assuming office on June 15th, 2012 following her election by the assembly of state parties. It is unclear whether the case against former Ugandan war lord Dominic Ongwen would have been decided by the time Fatou Bensounda leaves office as chief prosecutor.

The new Prosecutor will be the third to Chief Prosecutor handle the situation of Uganda in which five Senior commanders of the Lord’s Resistance Army are indicted for war crimes, sexual and gender based crimes and crimes against humanity.

Louis Moreno Ocampo, the first prosecutor of the Court to handle the matter unsealed five arrest warrants issued against the five senior commanders in 2005.

The commanders include Dominic Ongwen, Raska Lukwiya, Okot Odhiambo, Vincent Otto and Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) founding leader Joseph Kony.

However cases against Raska Lukwiya and Okot Odhiambo have been dropped following their death in battles with the troops of Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The President of the Assembly of States Parties, Mr. O-Gon Kwon (Republic of Korea), says “with this announcement the Assembly of States Parties, assisted by the Committee on the Election of the Prosecutor, is seeking to attract the most qualified candidates for the position of Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court”.

He says “it is only through a transparent and structured process that the Assembly will be able to elect the highest qualified Prosecutor for the Court.”

The Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) is one of the four principal organs of the ICC. It is an independent organ responsible for examining situations under the jurisdiction of the ICC where genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression appear to have been committed.

It is the organ charged with the responsibility of carrying out investigations and prosecutions against individuals for whom there are reasonable grounds to believe that they are most responsible for those crimes.

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