On 6 December 2019, the Assembly appointed nine Experts to carry out an Independent Expert Review of the International Criminal Court and the Rome Statute System. The Experts were mandated to make recommendations to the Assembly of States Parties and the Court on specific complex technical issues under the clusters Governance, Judiciary, and Investigations and Prosecutions. The Assembly underlined that, for this process to be successful, it must involve all States Parties, the Court and other relevant stakeholders.
On behalf of the Court, I would thank the experts for their hard work on this review process, particularly in the trying conditions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, the Court received the Experts’ report resulting from that review process. Across the Court, we have fully engaged with this process from the outset with high expectations. We look forward to carefully reviewing and assessing the report.
As the States Parties, the stakeholders and the Court digest and process the observations and recommendations in the report, we are anxious to stress the urgency of addressing the recent political attacks against the Court, including the coercive economic measures against the Court’s Prosecutor and one of her chief aides. Those remain matters of the most immediate priority.
