Election of the new ICC Prosecutor - what can be expected?

18 June 2020 By

for JusticeInfo.net

Before the end of June, a shortlist of candidates for the prestigious post of International Criminal Court Prosecutor will come out. This will give a closer view of the options before the ICC States Parties, who will announce their final choice at the end of 2020. After a Latin American (Luis Moreno Ocampo from Argentina) and an African (Fatou Bensouda from Gambia), where will the new Prosecutor come from? After a long series of judicial humiliations in prosecuting the most prominent cases (e.g. Kenya, Ivory Coast, Libya, CAR), will a new Prosecutor be able to turn things around? This week our dedicated partners at Asymmetrical Haircuts and their guests Danya Chaikel, Diane Marie Amann and Priya Pillai open the discussion on this eagerly awaited election.

Who will succeed Gambian Fatou Bensouda as Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court? The names of the shortlisted candidates should be announced in June. © Peter Dejong / ANP / AFP

1 min 42Approximate reading time

To listen to the podcast, click on the "play" button below:

The election of the new prosecutor at the International Criminal Court is coming up in December. In the run up to the announcement of the shortlist of candidates there has been much debate about the role of the prosecutor and also the kind of person who should get the job, for instance in an online symposium for Opinio Juris and Justice in Conflict and an open letter of Atlas Women.

We got together with three of the fabulous women commentators contributing to the online debate for those who would rather listen than read. Danya Chaikel, Diane Marie Amann and Priya Pillai talks us thought the issues and what the requirement of having “high moral character” really says.

As always we asked recommendations and with lots of speakers there are lots of options. Danya was reading Virginia Woolf’s Orlando and watching Ugly Delicious on Netflix . Priya dives into controversy with her pick American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins. And for those of you with a lot of time on your hands during (partial) lockdown Diane offered a pallet of classic and still timely books and a real academic read with Albert Camus’ La Peste, Culture and Imperialism by Edward Said. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead and Mary Ellen O’Connel’s The Art of Law in the International Community. Finally the title of the book Stephanie couldn’t remember was Savage Appetites by Rachel Monroe which explores why women are drawn to true crime books, podcasts and television shows.

ASYMMETRICAL HAIRCUTS

This podcast has been published as part of a partnership between JusticeInfo.net and Asymmetrical Haircuts, a podcast on international justice produced from The Hague by journalists Janet Anderson and Stephanie van den Berg, who retain full control and independence over the contents of the podcast.