Arusha / The Hague, 22 October 2025 — The President of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT), Judge Graciela Gatti Santana, presented the Mechanism’s thirteenth Annual Report to the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
At the outset, President Gatti Santana congratulated H.E. Ms. Annalena Baerbock of the Federal Republic of Germany on her election as President of the 80th session of the General Assembly. She noted that she shares the President’s vision that the United Nations must preserve its past achievements while adapting boldly to confront present and future challenges — a principle also guiding the Mechanism’s work.
The President emphasized that, with the consistent support of the General Assembly, the Mechanism and its predecessors — the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda — have delivered justice, documented historical facts, and developed international legal standards and best practices. These, she said, form the foundation of today’s global accountability efforts. President Gatti Santana underlined that this legacy must be protected and that responsibly concluding the “justice cycle” remains vital. The Mechanism, she affirmed, is committed to being a partner in change — reducing costs, transferring or terminating functions no longer required, and upholding the principled application of international law.
She noted that the Mechanism continues to carry out a range of mandated tasks, including adjudicating residual judicial matters, supervising the enforcement of sentences, supporting national jurisdictions in prosecuting perpetrators of international crimes, monitoring referred cases, and managing the preservation and access to its archives and those of its predecessors. These residual functions, she stressed, are essential:
“Verdicts must not only be entered; sentences must be enforced. Reconciliation is advanced by comprehensive accountability. Protecting and ensuring access to judicially established facts is critical today due to growing and systemic revisionism and genocidal denial.”
President Gatti Santana also highlighted the Mechanism’s collaboration with other UN entities in assisting the Secretary-General with two reports requested by the Security Council under Resolution 2740 (2024), concerning the future of certain functions. She reiterated that it is for the Secretary-General to recommend, and the Council to decide, whether such functions should be transferred. Meanwhile, the Mechanism continues to align with the Council’s vision of a small, temporary institution — reducing staff and resources since 2020, adjusting its legal framework to avoid resource-intensive proceedings, and streamlining operations in the supervision of sentence enforcement.
The President underscored that the Mechanism’s efficient completion of its mandate depends on the cooperation of Member States. She pointed to the three persons still held in the United Nations Detention Unit in The Hague, as well as the five persons relocated to Niger in 2021 after acquittal or completion of their sentences — all of whom remain under the Mechanism’s care, generating significant financial costs.
In closing, President Gatti Santana reaffirmed the enduring message of the Mechanism and its predecessor tribunals:
“Possessing the power and resources to commit mass atrocities today does not insulate any individual from accountability tomorrow.”
She cautioned that the international community must not “falter in this last mile of the justice cycle and risk undoing all that has come before.” President Gatti Santana concluded by assuring the Assembly that the Mechanism stands ready to work with both the General Assembly and the Security Council to find innovative solutions to complete its mandate fairly, efficiently, and at an appropriate cost, and she expressed gratitude to Member States for their continued support.
