The International Criminal Court (ICC) has posted opening remarks from the Review Conference of the Rome Statute, which opened Monday in Kampala, Uganda.
The historic conference, which runs through June 11, provides State Parties the first chance to make amendments to the Rome Statute since its 2002 inception, and to measure the impact of the Statute and the ICC.
A briefing of the conference by Anthony Dworkin can be found at the Crimes of War Project.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon called the conference “an occasion to strength our collective determination that crimes against humanity cannot go unpunished.
“The old era of impunity is over; in its place, slowly but surely, we are witnessing the birth of a new age of accountability,” Ban said. “Now we have the ICC: permanent, increasingly powerful, casting a long shadow. … In this new age of accountability, those who commit the worst of human crimes will be held responsible.”
Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan addressed the lack of global support for the universal court as six of the G20, including the United States, China, India and Russia, have not ratified the Rome Statute:
“The States Parties to this historic Statute must therefore pose the question: …’What kind of leadership is this which would absolve the powerful from the rules they apply to the weak?'”
Annan said:
“Ending impunity is the solemn pledge we undertook. Let us fulfill it so that when our grandchildren look back, they are not haunted by new voices from killing fields yet to be named.”
Time markers for the speakers are:
- 0:17 President, Assembly of the States Parties, Ambassador Christian Wenawesar
- 2:38 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
- 5:44 ICC President, Justice San Hyun Song
- 8:40 ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo
- 10:58 Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
