THE HAGUE, Netherlands–3 September 2020–In response to the German federal government’s statement about the alleged poisoning of Mr Alexei Navalny with a nerve agent, the Director-General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), H.E. Mr Fernando Arias, issued the following statement:
“Under the Chemical Weapons Convention, any poisoning of an individual through the use of a nerve agent is considered a use of chemical weapons. Such an allegation is a matter of grave concern. States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention deem the use of chemical weapons by anyone under any circumstances as reprehensible and wholly contrary to the legal norms established by the international community.
The OPCW continues to monitor the situation and stands ready to engage with and to assist any States Parties that may request its assistance.”
Tuesday, 1 September 2020, Madrid, Kingdom of Spain: The Spanish Council of Ministers consented to bestow the Grand Cross of the Order of Isabel the Catholic to erstwhile Qatari Ambassador to Spain, Mohamed bin Jaham bin Abdulaziz Al Kuwari, now serving as his country’s head of mission to Germany.
Al Kuwari served as chef de mission in Spain between 2017 and 2019 before passing on the post to Ambassador Abdalla Al Hamas. During Al Kuwari’s farewell allocution, he particularly thanked Spain for supporting Qatar in the aftermath of the blockade imposed by neighbouring countries.
Since Thursday, 21 November 2019 Ambassador Mohamed Al Kuwari (b. 1958) was accredited before German Federal President Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier at Bellevue Palace. He is a studied political scientist who speaks fluent Arabic, English, French and Spanish.
The Orden de Isabel la Católica is a Spanish civil, stately order wherein membership is granted in recognition of services that benefit the country. Nowadays it is the order given in particular to those individuals promoting Spanish relations with the international community. The order was instituted by King Ferdinand VII on 14 March 1815. Today the order’s Grand Master is King Felipe VI, and its chancellor the Spanish Foreign Minister, Arancha González Laya, both ex officio.
The grand cross granted to Ambassador Al Kuwari is of the first rank, entitling him to i) personal nobility, and ii) the predicate of ‘Excelentísimo Señor Don‘ (Most Excellent Lord) before his given names.
His Holiness Pope Francis and the President of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji.
The President of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji, was received by His Holiness Pope Francis at the Vatican on 3 September 2020. The ICC President also met with the Secretary for Relations with States, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, during his official visit to the Holy See.
During his audience, the ICC President briefed His Holiness on the Court’s latest judicial developments as well as its achievements and challenges in fighting impunity for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. He recalled the traditional role of the Holy See in anchoring and disseminating the message of peace to all humanity, and emphasized that that message resonates strongly with the mandate of the ICC, which is to reduce warfare and the devastating effects of armed conflicts through the rule of law.
The ICC President drew parallels between the coinciding values of the Holy See and the ICC, including supporting human rights and the rule of law, preventing human suffering brought by armed conflict, protecting the most vulnerable people, rebuilding communities and societies shattered by violence, and bringing messages of hope for a better future. In that sense, he underscored the union of purpose between the Holy See and the ICC in the pursuit of peace for humanity: the Holy See being a foremost spiritual agency for the message of peace, while the ICC seeks to discharge its mandate as an important temporal instrument for the actualization of peace.
The ICC President relayed how further, global support is needed for the Court. Referring to the current challenges to global values of peace and justice, he asked for support to encourage States to ratify the Rome Statute – the founding treaty of the Court – and desist from attacking the Court as it fulfills its functions. Through such support for the system of international criminal justice and the Court’s continued work, he said, dividends of peace through justice will inure to the benefit humanity wherever such dividends are in urgent need.
Arusha, 3 September 2020– Mechanism Prosecutor Serge Brammertz visited Kigali from 25 August to 3 September 2020. This was the Prosecutor’s first visit to Kigali since the arrest of Félicien Kabuga on 16 May 2020. During this visit, the Prosecutor met with various officials from the Republic of Rwanda including Dr Vincent Biruta, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Mr Johnston Busingye, the Minister of Justice, Mr Aimable Havugiyaremye, the Prosecutor General and the heads of security and law enforcement services to intensify efforts to track and arrest the remaining Mechanism fugitives and to progress ongoing case-related investigations following the arrest of Félicien Kabuga.
The Prosecutor also met the Executive Secretary of the CNLG together with representatives of several victims associations including IBUKA, AERG and AVEGA AGAHOZO. The Prosecutor reiterated the Office’s commitment to pursue justice for the victims and survivors. All representatives of the different authorities and associations expressed their gratitude and their commitment to support the Mechanism efforts in the tracking of remaining fugitives and support in the Kabuga investigations.
As part of preparations for his regular biannual report to the UN Security Council (UNSC), the Prosecutor also met with members of the international community, expressing gratitude for the invaluable support provided towards Kabuga’s arrest. The Prosecutor requested the continued support of the international community in the search and arrest of the remaining six fugitives indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
It is expected that Prosecutor Brammertz will present his next report to the UNSC in December 2020.
Honorable Speaker of Bangladesh National Parliament (Jatiya Sangsad), Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury, paid a courtesy visit to Bangladesh Embassy in the Netherlands on August 31.
H.E. Ambassador Hamidullah welcoming Dr. Chaudhury.
Welcomed at the Chancery by Ambassador Riaz Hamidullah, in interactions with the Mission staff, Hon Speaker shared the Government’s vision and some of the key policy orientations towards emergence of Bangladesh as a responsible – humanitarian – inclusive State.
Ambassador Riaz Hamidullah welcoming Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury together with his diplomatic staff.
Today the Government of the United States announced concrete measures against the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and a senior staff member in her office. I strongly reject such unprecedented and unacceptable measures against a treaty-based international organization. They only serve to weaken our common endeavor to fight impunity for mass atrocities.
The Court is an independent and impartial judicial institution. It operates in strict adherence to the provisions of the Rome Statute. The ICC is complementary to national jurisdictions and thus recognizes the primary jurisdiction of States themselves. This is the cornerstone of the Statute. Further, the Assembly of States Parties and the Court have together embarked on wide-ranging review process to strengthen the Rome Statute system and improve the Court’s performance and efficiency.
We stand by our Court and its staff as well as those cooperating with it in implementing its judicial mandate. A meeting of the Bureau of the Assembly will take place shortly to consider the measures imposed by the United States and ways to give effect to our unstinting support for the Court.
I call upon the States Parties and all the stakeholders in the Rome Statute system to reiterate once again our unwavering commitment to uphold and defend the principles and values enshrined in the Statute and to preserve its integrity undeterred by any measures and threats against the Court and its officials, staff and their families.
The International Criminal Court (“ICC” or “Court”) condemns the economic sanctions imposed by the US earlier today on the Court’s Prosecutor and a member of her Office.
The new measures, announced pursuant to the US Executive Order 13928 dated 11 June 2020, are another attempt to interfere with the Court’s judicial
and prosecutorial independence and crucial work to address grave crimes of concern to the international community as mandated under the ICC Rome Statute.
These coercive acts, directed at an international judicial institution and its civil servants, are unprecedented and constitute serious attacks
against the Court, the Rome Statute system of international criminal justice, and the rule of law more generally.
The Court continues to stand firmly by its personnel and its mission of fighting impunity for the world’s most serious crimes under international
law, independently and impartially, in accordance with its mandate. In doing so, the Court benefits from the strong support and commitment of two thirds of the world’s States which are parties to the Rome Statute.
Gordan Bakota and Dr. Florian Herrmann – Picture by Bayerische Staatskanzlei, bayern.de
2 September 2020, Munich, Free State of Bavaria, Germany: Head of the Bavarian Chancellery, Dr. Florian Herrmann, Minister of State for Federal and European Affairs and Media, received the visit of Croatian Ambassador Gordan Bakota, accredited in Germany since 7 January 2020.
The Ambassador was accompanied by Croatia’s Consul General in Munich, Vladimir Duvnjak, who serves in the Bavarian capital for the second time since 2018. Having previously being based out of Frankfurt am Main, and covering the Bundesländer Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate as well as the Saarland.
Ambassador Gordan Bakota was previously in charge of the Embassy of Croatia in Austria, and has likewise been head of mission in Turkey (covering Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) as well as in Serbia. In addition to his native Serbo-Croatian, he speaks English and German.
Arusha, The Hague, 1 September 2020 – The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (Mechanism) today launched a new Unified Court Records database (UCR), which for the first time brings together all public judicial records of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the Mechanism.
The UCR provides integrated and enhanced public access to a wide array of records from these three institutions, including indictments, trial transcripts, motions, orders, decisions and judgements, as well as public evidence admitted in court and audiovisual recordings of hearings.
In addition, the UCR has been designed to facilitate legal research by enabling searches across ICTR, ICTY and Mechanism records. The new search function allows users to better tailor their research according to their specific requirements. Users can search for materials in a more targeted way by selecting multiple cases, searching the full text or title of the records, or searching by other information such as date filed or admitted, accused name, document type, case name and case number. Among other features, the UCR also includes the ‘’Recent Court Records’’ function, which displays the latest 50 court records that have been added to the database.
Records in the UCR will be updated on a regular basis, and users are invited to provide feedback on the functionality of the UCR by sending an email to marshague@un.org. Other judicial records databases currently maintained by the Mechanism, including the ICTY Court Records (ICR) and Judicial Records and Archives Database (JRAD) will gradually be discontinued.
The UCR is accessible at the link ucr.irmct.org with prior registration for first-time users. In addition to English, the UCR is also available in Albanian, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, French, Kinyarwanda and Macedonian.
Prime Minister-designate Dr. Mustapha Adib and Henri Estramant, Royal Bridges’ Managing Director and Diplomat Magazine’s Diplomatic Adviser. Image by Royal Bridges
Monday, 31 August 2020, Beirut, Lebanese Republic: Lebanese leaders named diplomat Dr. Mustapha Adib as prime minister-designate. With its economy devastated by a financial crisis, a swathe of Beirut in tatters following a huge port explosion on 4 August, and sectarian tensions rising, Lebanon is facing the biggest threat to its stability since the 1975-90 civil war.
Dr. Adib, erstwhile ambassador to Germany and doyen of the Arab diplomatic corps in Berlin, was named hours before French President Emmanuel Macron is due in Beirut for his second visit in less than a month. The French president will push politicians to enact reforms that donors have demanded to tackle corruption, and waste before they might release financial support.
Adib holds a doctorate in law and political science, visited areas hardest hit by the port explosion that killed some 190 people and injured 6,000 shortly after his nomination. Prime Minister Adib (48 years old) is married to a French national, is father to five children, and hails from Tripoli in northern Lebanon.
Adib’s name surfaced on Sunday when he was nominated by former prime ministers, including Saad al-Hariri who heads Lebanon’s biggest Sunni Muslim party. The post of prime minister must go to a Sunni in the Lebanese system.
Hariri’s Future Movement and the powerful Iranian-backed Shi’ite party Hezbollah were among those nominating him. With Hariri’s backing, Adib will enjoy more support than the Diab government, which was nominated by Hezbollah and its allies which together have a parliamentary majority.
Ambassador of the Arab Union, Talal El Amine; Ambassador of Nigeria to Germany, Yusuf Tuggar; Sheikh Rashid Al Khalifa (artist Rashid Al Khalifa); Ambassador of Egypt, Khaled Abdelhamid; Dr. Mustapha Adib, Lebanon’s Prime Minister.
