As fighting continues in Ukraine with its share of victims and atrocities, the International Criminal Court (ICC) based in The Hague has launched an investigation which should enable it to gather evidence on war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during this conflict. So decided the new prosecutor, a 51-year-old Briton, determined to beef up an institution weakened by meager results.
An atypical journey
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, his career path is atypical. Son of a Pakistani dermatologist and a British nurse who, in the 1980s, went abroad once a year to voluntarily treat the inhabitants of remote areas in Pakistan, India or Gambia, Karim Khan belongs to the Ahmadi religious minority, a current of Islam born in Punjab, targeted by discrimination and violence in Pakistan.
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His experience in major trials in Africa makes him a valued judge on this continent. Although he was a lawyer for the President of Liberia, Charles Taylor, accused of war crimes in Sierra Leone, or a defense adviser for the Kenyan President, William Ruto, accused of crimes against humanity during the violence that followed the election in 2007. Or that of Saif Gaddafi, son of the Libyan dictator. His experience on both sides of the bar – he also worked for the prosecutor’s office of the former tribunal for Yugoslavia, then for Rwanda – is the richness of his profile, believe those who support him.
Raised in England, he studied law at the prestigious King’s College in London, was admitted to the capital’s bar in 1992 before beginning his career in the British judiciary. Philippe Sands, who was his professor of international law at King’s College, believes in an article in the Guardian that his former pupil will have a hard task, but affirms that “all signs show that he has the capacity to be an independent, courageous and pragmatic prosecutor”. Thanks to his knowledge and experience acquired as a lawyer, he knows what it means to prepare, direct and plead in an international criminal trial.
Nine years to reform the ICC
Essential qualities for anyone who wants to reform an institution that has yet to prove itself. As a candidate, he did not evade the difficulties of the ICC: “We cannot hide our face and risk continuing to keep empty promises”he launched to the Member States on 10 December. “I am not here to promise such and such a number of convictions or openings of investigation”, he continued, calling for cases to be selected more rigorously. He will have nine years – the length of his term – to reform this institution.
Karim Khan’s predecessors, Argentinian Luis Moreno Ocampo and Gambian Fatou Bensouda, were appointed by consensus. And for the first time, at the request of a number of countries and civil society groups demanding more transparency and a more competitive selection process, a special committee has been set up to audition candidates. Lacking consensus, a vote eventually took place at the United Nations in New York, although the International Criminal Court is independent of the organization.
Innovation in evidence collection
During this vote, Karim Khan was elected in the second round, against his three competitors – an Irishman, a Spaniard and an Italian – and thanks to the votes of 72 of the 123 States Parties (the absolute majority being required), signatories of the Rome statute. In the report of the Prosecutor’s Election Committee, responsible for evaluating the candidacies, he is presented as a “charismatic communicator, clearly favorable to a work environment where harassment is excluded”. A reference to another independent report, requested by the assembly of member countries and published in September, which reported, among other things, practices within the previous team relating more to favoritism than merit. A severe finding that Fatou Bensadou challenged, believing that the ICC did not have the financial means to match its task and that many member countries did not cooperate with the ICC.
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Before The Hague, Karim Khan was in Baghdad, Iraq, at the head of a special UN commission of inquiry which was investigating the war crimes of Daesh. There is, it is said, innovated in the collection of evidence. But the hardest part could come from the United States and Israel, two countries that have not signed the Rome Statute and great opponents of the ICC, while two ongoing investigations concern them: one on alleged abuses committed by American soldiers in Afghanistan and the other against war crimes committed in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.