Building international justice: Ahead of next month’s meeting of the Assembly of States Parties, ask the Canadian government to continue and increase their support of the International Criminal Court

The 18th session of the annual meeting of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) to the Rome Statute will be held December 2nd to 7th in The Hague, Netherlands.

The provisional work plan and background documentation is available on the website of the ASP.

Ahead of the ASP meeting, WFMC has once again partnered with officials at Global Affairs Canada to organize a meeting of Canadian civil society representatives and members of the Canadian delegation to the ASP, which will be held in late November.Areas for discussion this year include the campaign initiated by the Coalition for the International Criminal Court to encourage Ukraine to ratify the Rome Statue (see the letter encouraging the ratification, signed by WFMC amongst other CICC member organizations) and ongoing concerns about the United States’ hostile attitude towards the Court.

Another pending issue is the ongoing search for a new Prosecutor. The term of current Prosecutor Bensouda will end in 2021. An interim report from the committee tasked with the new Prosecutor’s selection, which includes Canadian Sabine Nölke, is available.

In addition, at the 2017 ASP meeting, a consensus decision was made to “activate” the ICC’s jurisdiction over the crime of aggression. Canada has not, however, ratified the Kampala Amendments.

What you can do

Send an an email to new Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne and ask that Canada continue and increase their support of the International Criminal Court, in part by supporting a transparent process for selecting the next Prosecutor and by ratifying the Kampala amendments on the crime of aggression.