Known broadly as The Ljubljana-The Hague Convention, the signing at the Peace Palace in The Hague, The Netherlands, last Wednesday, commits the country to the tenets of the first global treaty to fight impunity since the Rome Statutes of 1998 which established the International Criminal Court.

In all, 34 states parties executed the Ljubljana-The Hague Convention, which requires ratifications by only three states to bring it into force.

The Ljubljana-The Hague Convention marks the commitment of the world to root out genocide, crimes against humanity and international crimes generally.

Genocide

Various acts constitute genocide committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

The UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect states that the acts may be all or any, such as exterminating members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Some genocide events include Nazi Germany’s attempt to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe, a holocaust which claimed more than six million Jewish lives during the World War II, mostly in 1933; the Bosnian genocide between 1992 and 1995; the Rwandan genocide of 1994; the Darfur genocide of 2003 and recently the Rohingya genocide which resurfaced in 2016 and still persists.

Signing

The signing ceremony was the culmination of work on the treaty for over 12 years by a core group constituted for the exercise.

Present at the signing ceremony were the President of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Piotr Hofmanski, the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, Karim A. Khan, the Minister of Justice and Security of the Netherlands, Dilan Yesilgoz, the Minister of State in the Netherlands responsible for Immigration, Eric van der Burg, the Mayor of The Hague, Jan van Zanen, Justice Ministers of States Parties to the ICC and some Foreign Ministers of the States Parties who signed (executed) the treaty.

After the signing, Mr Dame explained in a release to the press that the Ljubljana-The HagueConvention created an international legal framework for cooperation among states in the investigation and prosecution of crimes.

He said the convention was deemed to be an important milestone in international criminal law as it sought to enlist international support in the prosecution and investigation of the most serious international crimes.

The convention deals with other matters, including the transfer of prisoners, use and protection of data, mutual legal assistance, extradition of nationals and cross-border investigations.

Context

The international community recognised a gap in international law in so far as the efforts to end impunity were concerned and thus constituted the "Core Group" to fashion out an international legal mechanism to bridge the gap.

The Core Group of countries which worked on the Ljubljana-The Hague Treaty included The Netherlands, Argentina, Slovenia, Mongolia, Senegal and Belgium.

Fight against impunity

Speakers at the signing ceremony, drawn from the Core Group which worked on the Treaty, hailed the Convention as a major contribution to the international fight against impunity, war crimes and crimes of international character generally.

They indicated that the convention was particularly important in view of the current growing tendency for states to prosecute international crimes domestically generally.

The speakers therefore agreed that there was the need for enhanced cooperation in order to give meaning to the original Rome Statutes of 1998.