(Adds link to Reuters report)
LONDON (AlertNet) - The president of the International Criminal Court (ICC) expressed confidence on Thursday that Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir will eventually face trial in The Hague over war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur.
ICC President Judge Sang-Hyun Song's comments come a year after the world court issued an arrest warrant for Bashir in the first indictment against a sitting head of state. Bashir was charged on seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, which include murder, rape and torture.
Here are some quotes from Song, who gave a briefing at the House of Commons in London where he spoke about the case against Bashir and a shift in attitude of the United States, which has yet to ratify the treaty establishing the ICC.
On chances that Sudan's Bashir would appear before the ICC to face trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the western region of Darfur:
"May I remind you of two previous similar occasions where President Slobodan Milosevic and President Charles Taylor of Sierra Leone were brought, surrendered before the ad hoc tribunals. When the arrest warrant was issued against these two individuals, pretty much people were laughing ... 'How could you bring the top person to justice? This is a joke.'
"It took less than three years to get them brought before the tribunal and in the case of the arrest warrant for Mr al-Bashir, the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court knows no statute of limitations, so some day he will be brought to The Hague to face justice."
On the impact of the Bashir case on Darfur:
"Some observers including at the United Nations do say more than once, they notice some sort of deterrency effect by the judicial actions we took ... Maybe we may have already some impact by deterring atrocities. Perhaps the would-be perpetrators fear prosecution and so on. If so, this is also an indication of big progress, and big difference."
On the shift in Washington's stance towards the ICC:
"I met lots of senior officials of the Obama administration, including U.S. senators and U.S. congressmen. The U.S.
government has ended its antagonistic stance towards the ICC. The key word that all the officials whom I met with, gave me or indicated to me, was 'positive engagement' with the International Criminal Court or the international criminal justice system."
On getting two-thirds of U.S. senators to vote in favour of ratifying the ICC treaty:
"This is a difficult process and it will take some years, but the initiative should come from the executive branch of the government perhaps. I am cautiously optimistic that in the future the U.S. will eventually join us."
Here are some facts about how the International Criminal Court was set up and how it operates:
* The United Nations has ad hoc tribunals dealing with abuses in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, but the ICC is the first permanent court set up to try individuals for genocide, war crimes and other major human rights violations.
* The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was established on July 17, 1998, when 120 states participating in a conference on the court adopted the treaty.
* The statute needed a minimum of 60 ratifications to come into force, which it reached in April 2002, and the treaty
entered into force on July 1, 2002.
* The court is now supported by 110 nations, although still not by Russia, China and the United States, which opposed the creation of the ICC, fearing it would be used for politically motivated prosecutions of its citizens.
* The ICC is an independent institution. It is not part of the U.N. system or any political organ.
* Its jurisdiction is limited to the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole - genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
* The jurisdiction of the court may be triggered by a state, the U.N. Security Council or the prosecutor of the ICC under certain conditions.
* The ICC's jurisdiction is not yet universal. It only has jurisdiction over nationals of states who are parties or over crimes committed on the territory of a state that is a signatory to the treaty.
* The ICC's jurisdiction only applies to crimes committed after the entry into force of the Rome Statute on July 1, 2002.
* It is a court of last resort.
* The ICC does not replace or supplant national courts. It does not have the ability to override properly functioning
national courts, and must defer to credible investigations and prosecutions by national courts.
* The ICC can act only when a state is unwilling or unable to carry out an investigation or a prosecution
* The ICC chief prosecutor has opened four investigations - in Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Central African Republic and Sudan/Darfur. He filed an application in December to open a fifth in Kenya, which is being considered by ICC judges.
* There have been 13 arrest warrants issues with four suspects in custody.
* The first trial began in January 2009 - a case involving Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, accused of enlisting and conscripting children and using them to participate in hostilities. The trial continues - for updates visit www.lubangatrial.org.
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