Founded | February 1995 |
---|---|
Type | Non-profit NGO |
Location |
|
Services | Advocacy |
Members | 2,500 non-governmental organizations |
Key people | CICC Acting Convenor Ms. Melinda Reed |
Website | http://www.coalitionfortheicc.org |
The Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC) is an international network of NGOs, with a membership of over 2,500 organizations worldwide advocating for a fair, effective and independent International Criminal Court (ICC). Coalition NGO members work in partnership to strengthen international cooperation with the ICC; ensure that the court is fair, effective and independent; make justice both visible and universal, and advance stronger national laws that deliver justice to victims of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The CICC Secretariat is hosted by the Women's Initiative for Gender Justice and it is based in The Hague.
The coalition was founded in 1995 by a small group of NGOs that coordinated their work to ensure the establishment of an international criminal court. [1] The founders, decided to house the Secretariat of the movement with the World Federalist Movement, and Mr. William Pace, at that time Director of the WFM, was appointed Convenor for the Coalition.
Since then, the coalition's membership has progressively increased as its original goal of establishing the ICC grew to include the larger goal of guaranteeing the court's fair, effective and independent functioning. Over the years, the coalition secretariat and its global membership have worked together at every stage of the court's development from the preparatory committees for the establishment of the court, to the Rome Conference that established the court to the annual Assembly of States Parties meetings. Milestones in the coalition's work include the participation in and monitoring of the 1998 Rome Conference, resulting in the adoption of the Rome Statute of the ICC; the statute's rapid entry into force on July 1, 2002; and the election of the court's senior officials, completed in June 2003. The role of the coalition was recognized by the Assembly of States Parties when it adopted a resolution entitled Recognition of the coordinating and facilitating role of the NGO Coalition for the International Criminal Court (ICC-ASP/2/Res.8) during its second session in September 2003.
In 2019, Mr. William Pace stepped down as CICC Convenor after almost 25 years. The Steering Committee of the Coalition appointed Ms. Melinda Reed (Women's Initiatives for Gender Justice), as the Acting Convenor, until a new Convenor is appointed by the membership of the movement.
A core group of well-known and respected NGOs form the Steering Committee of the Coalition, which provide policy and program coherence for the Coalition’s efforts and activities. [2] Adapting and adjusting to political developments, the Steering Committee helps guide the work of the coalition's secretariat, serving as an advisory body not only to provide global policy coherence, but to ensure cooperation and provide crucial strategic oversight. Each of these organisations has its own ICC programs, staff and resources.
Steering committee members include:
In 1995, the CICC consisted of 25-member organizations, but today—with a global membership of more than 2500 organizations—the Coalition has become a major actor in the global fight to end impunity. Coalition members represent vast geographic and thematic interests, including human rights, women's issues, children's rights, peace, international law, humanitarian assistance, the rights of victims, faith-based issues, and disarmament.
The Coalition for the ICC has established strong national and regional networks all over the world. The CICC national coalitions and regional networks typically comprise a diverse range of civil society groups working within a single country or region, including NGOs, academics, lawyers, and bar associations. Through these networks, strategic plans to achieve the goals of this campaign, in particular ratification and implementation of the Rome Statute, and widespread education about the court and the statute, are developed and carried out.
By 2009, there were 14 national coalitions in Asia and the Pacific, 14 in Europe, 21 in Africa, 11 in the Middle East and North Africa, and nine in Latin America, for a total of 69 national coalitions advocating for the ICC.
The CICC secretariat's regional section, its regional coordinators based around the world and its outreach liaisons in New York City, support the development and capacity-building of the CICC networks and work closely with them at every stage.
The CICC monitors a wide range of issues relating to the work of the ICC through issue-specific teams and working groups composed of NGO representatives. Membership to these teams is open to all CICC members.
Currently these include topics such as:
Purpose
Background
The coalition advocates for universal ratification of the Rome Statute of the ICC as it is a cornerstone objective to making the membership in the ICC truly global and universal. The CICC believes that in order for the court to succeed, an increasing majority of the world's nations must support the court.
In particular, the coalition has a Universal Ratification Campaign (URC) which focuses on one country each month, rotating to a different region each time. As part of this major campaign, members in every region are encouraged to redouble efforts in order to ensure universal acceptance of the ICC. Local actions are needed to promote awareness of the International Criminal Court, increase media coverage, urge governments to ratify the Rome Statute, adopt effective implementing legislation, and ratify the Agreement on Privileges and Immunities.
The CICC also campaigns for implementation of all of the crimes under the Rome Statute into domestic legislation. As the court initiates new investigations, the existence of solid cooperation and implementing legislation has taken on further urgency.
In addition, the CICC is urging States to ratify and implement the Agreement on Privileges and Immunity of the ICC (APIC), designed to provide officials and staff of the ICC with certain privileges and immunities necessary for them to perform their duties in an independent and unconditional manner, and to guarantee that their officials are aware of the actual scope and realities of these privileges and immunities and how to apply them in concrete situations.
Current major funding is provided by the European Union, the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Open Society Institute, as well as by the governments of Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland, and a number of individual donors.
The CICC has both electronic and print publications.
Tens of thousands of copies of print resources are distributed worldwide to government representatives, international organizations, academics, civil society groups, and individuals. They provide updates on developments at the court as well as at the Assembly of States Parties; reports on ICC-related events worldwide; details on new resources and upcoming events; and information about key issues related to the International Criminal Court.
CICC's publication The Monitor • The CICC Bulletin is a bi-monthly online publication featuring updates on the work of the ICC and CICC, as well as on the progress of the four situations currently before the court. It is published in English, French, and Spanish. • The MENA Update is a bi-annual online newsletter in Arabic providing updates on ICC -related issues in the Middle East and North Africa • The Europe Update is a bi-annual online newsletter with information on the latest ICC- related events in Europe • The Africa Update' is a bi-annual online newsletter focused on ICC developments in Africa
In Situ blog • The Asia Update is a biannual online newsletter with information on ICC- related developments in Asia
• The CICC blog “In Situ – See justice through the eyes of civil society”: in situ is Latin for "in the natural place", and refers to bringing international justice and trial proceedings home to affected communities. The coalition's blog endeavors to help bridge the gap between the populations affected by the crimes under the court's investigation and the ICC's daily activities at its headquarters in The Hague. In Situ features posts by some of the more than 2,500 members in 150 countries around the world.
In addition to these publications and the CICC website (www.iccnow.org), the Coalition's electronic resources include information email lists in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese to which daily postings are made. Summaries of all news coverage of the ICC, information on new ratifications of the statute and progress towards ratification, announcements of upcoming events, notes and reports on the Assembly of States Parties, and other critical information is made available through these lists.
The International Criminal Court is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for the international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. The ICC is distinct from the International Court of Justice, an organ of the United Nations that hears disputes between states.
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). It was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome, Italy on 17 July 1998 and it entered into force on 1 July 2002. As of November 2019, 123 states are party to the statute. Among other things, it establishes court function, jurisdiction and structure.
The crime of apartheid is defined by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime".
International criminal law (ICL) is a body of public international law designed to prohibit certain categories of conduct commonly viewed as serious atrocities and to make perpetrators of such conduct criminally accountable for their perpetration. The core crimes under international law are genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression.
Lyal S. Sunga is a well-known specialist on international human rights law, international humanitarian law and international criminal law.
Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA) is a non-profit, non-partisan international network of committed legislators, that informs and mobilizes parliamentarians in all regions of the world to advocate for human rights and the rule of law, democracy, human security, non-discrimination, gender equality, and climate justice. PGA Membership is open to individual legislators from elected parliaments. Currently, it consists of approximately 1,200 members in 139 parliaments. PGA was established in 1978 in Washington, D.C., by a group of concerned parliamentarians from around the world to take collective, coordinated and cohesive actions on global problems, which could not be successfully addressed by any one government or parliament acting alone. Founded during the Cold War era, an early focus and priority of the organization was the mobilization of parliamentarians worldwide in support of nuclear disarmament. The vision of PGA is "to contribute to the creation of a Rules-Based International Order for a more equitable, safe, and democratic world".
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The American Non-Governmental Organizations Coalition for the International Criminal Court (AMICC) leads the civil society movement for full United States participation in the International Criminal Court.
The International Association of Prosecutors (IAP) is a global non-governmental organisation of prosecutors, established by the United Nations in 1995, Vienna. It has 183 organizational members from 177 countries, and individual members.
The states parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court are those sovereign states that have ratified, or have otherwise become party to, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The Rome Statute is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court, an international court that has jurisdiction over certain international crimes, including genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes that are committed by nationals of states parties or within the territory of states parties. States parties are legally obligated to co-operate with the Court when it requires, such as in arresting and transferring indicted persons or providing access to evidence and witnesses. States parties are entitled to participate and vote in proceedings of the Assembly of States Parties, which is the Court's governing body. Such proceedings include the election of such officials as judges and the Prosecutor, the approval of the Court's budget, and the adoption of amendments to the Rome Statute.
No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ) or Non C'è Pace Senza Giustizia (NPSG) is an Italian non-profit organization, founded in 1993 by Emma Bonino, an Italian politician, former Member of the European Parliament and current Member of the Italian Senate. NPWJ is based in Rome and is a member of the Steering Committee of the NGO Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC) and a constituent association of the Nonviolent Transnational Radical Party, an NGO with General Consultative Status at the United Nations ECOSOC. The main programs areas are on international criminal justice, female genital mutilation, MENA democracy, including the Iraq project. Human rights are most at threat in situations of conflict, where even the international community often promotes short-term measures intended to stop the fighting, but which breed more conflict, perpetuate impunity and undermine the rule of law, unless they provide accountability for the crimes and redress for the victims. Justice, democracy and the rule of law are the pillars of sustainable peace by guaranteeing fundamental freedoms and human rights. NPWJ's original core activities since 1993 were designed to promote the establishment of a permanent International Criminal Court as part of a more effective international criminal justice system for the prevention, deterrence and prosecution of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
Tadashi Inuzuka is a Japanese politician of the Democratic Party of Japan, a former Senator in the House of Councillors of the Diet. A native of Tokyo, he graduated from Rikkyo University and received a master's degree from the University of Dallas in the United States. He was elected for the first time in 2004 from his Nagasaki constituency.
An atrocity crime is a violation of international criminal law that falls under the historically three legally defined international crimes of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Ethnic cleansing is widely regarded as a fourth mass atrocity crime by legal scholars and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in the field, despite not yet being recognized as an independent crime under international law.
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The Constitutional Court of Armenia is the highest legal body for constitutional review in Armenia. It is responsible for supervising the constitutionality of laws and other legislative instruments. The law of the constitutional court is defined in the Armenian constitution and by statute. The court, established in 1995, is located in Yerevan.
The World Federalist Movement/Institute for Global Policy, Ltd. is an organization that advocates for a democratic world government of a world federalist system. They seek to realize these goals by expanding international organizations and moving towards a unified system of governance.
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Ivory Coast is a sub-Saharan nation in West Africa. It is a representative presidential democracy where rights are protected in the constitution, international law, and common law. As a member of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, it is a party to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and a signatory to major international human-rights agreements. In 2011, the Second Ivorian Civil War saw increases in violence and human-rights abuses. Although progress has been made towards reconciliation, the trial of former first lady Simone Gbagbo suggests that the root causes have not been addressed; no one has been convicted of crimes against humanity. According to a 2018 Human Rights Watch report, "Ongoing indiscipline by members of the security services and violent army mutinies demonstrated the precariousness of the country’s newfound stability."
The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda, on 20 December 2019 announced an investigation into war crimes allegedly committed in Palestine by Israeli personnel or members of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups since 13 June 2014. The allegations include the establishing of illegal West Bank settlements and violations of the law of war by personnel of the Israeli Defence Forces during the 2014 Gaza War, including claims of targeting Red Cross installations. Members of armed Palestinian organizations, including Hamas, have been accused of deliberately attacking Israeli civilians and using Palestinians as human shields. Israel is not a member of the ICC and disputes its jurisdiction on the basis that Palestine is not a sovereign state capable of being a party to the Rome Statute, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly condemned the allegations and investigation.
(See Chapter 11: The Making of the ICC)
(See Chapter 5: NGOs-Advocates, Assets, Critics, and Goads)
(See Chapter 5: Negotiations: NGOs Shape the Terms of ICC Debate: 1995-1998)
for Gender Justice]