President Nana Akufo-Addo has given his assurance to the president of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Piotr Hofmanski, that Ghana will take immediate steps to incorporate the “Rome Statute” crimes fully into the country’s own laws.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) investigates and, where warranted, tries individuals charged with the gravest crimes of concern to the comity of nations, namely: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes of aggression.
Currently, only the crime of genocide is on the statute book in Ghana: specifically in Section 49a of the Criminal and Other Offences Act 1960 (Act 29), which states:
(1) Whoever commits genocide shall on conviction be sentenced to death.
(2) A person commits genocide where, with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, any national, ethnical or religious group, he —
(a) kills members of the group;
(b) causes serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) deliberately inflicts on the group conditions of life calculated to bring its physical destruct in whole or in part;
(d) imposes measures intended to prevent births within the group; or
(e) forcibly transfers children of the group to another group.
Addressing the ICC president and his delegation as they paid a courtesy call on him at Jubilee House in Accra today (27 September 2022), President Akufo-Addo said the ratification of all “Rome Statute” crimes into Ghana’s domestic laws must flow from the visit by the ICC leader.
“I think, with the presence of the ICC president here, I think it is good [reason] for us to commit to that. I don’t have a difficulty about having that [the provisions of the Rome Statute] in our municipal laws. I think that, even in this hung parliament, we can support it and make sure that it becomes a reality,” President Akufo-Addo said.
The president charged the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, together with Kwaku Agyeman-Budu, the Dean of the Faculty of Law at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), who is hosting the ICC president in Ghana, to champion the process to get the Rome Statute fully incorporated into Ghana’s domestic laws.
Exemplary support from Ghana
In his remarks, Judge Piotr Hofmanski, the president of the ICC, observed that Ghana has always been an exemplary supporter of the International Criminal Court and said that the court is grateful for her co-operation.
The ICC is very busy now, Judge Hofmanski said, with over 16 situations under investigation across four continents – Africa, Asia, Europe and South America.
In essence, the old claim that the ICC largely targets African countries and leaders no longer holds any strength, the ICC president said.
Visit to Ghana
Judge Piotr Hofmanski is on a three-day working visit to Ghana.
The ICC president’s visit commenced on Monday 26 September 2022 and will end on Wednesday 28 September, culminating in a public lecture on the Wednesday afternoon at the GIMPA Faculty of Law.
The visit to Ghana by the ICC president honours an invitation extended to him in September 2021 by Dr Agyeman-Budu, then the head of law centres, but now dean of the GIMPA law faculty, during a visit by Agyeman-Budu to the ICC president’s office in The Hague, the Netherlands.
On the second day of his visit, Judge Hofmanski also paid a courtesy call on the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin, and the Chief Justice of the Republic, Justice Kwesi Anin-Yeboah, at their offices before calling on President Akufo-Addo.
Invitation extended
At a meeting with Dr Agyeman-Budu on his visit to The Hague last year, Judge Hofmanski affirmed the ICC’s intention to pursue the terms of a memorandum of understanding that the ICC signed with the African Centre of International Criminal Justice (ACICJ) at the GIMPA Faculty of Law, which Dr Agyeman-Budu used to lead.
Judge Hofmanski declared that, like his immediate predecessor, the Nigerian judge Chile Eboe-Osuji, he looked forward to honouring the invitation extended to him to visit Ghana in 2022 to deliver a public lecture on international criminal justice in the annual ACICJ Public Lecture series at GIMPA’s law faculty.
It will be recalled that on 15 October 2019 the then president of the ICC, Judge Eboe-Osuji, delivered a public lecture at GIMPA at the invitation of Dr Agyeman-Budu and the ACICJ. Present at that event was His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the president of the Republic of Ghana.
The ICC and ACICJ
The ICC and the African Centre of International Criminal Justice (ACICJ), which is based at the GIMPA Faculty of Law, have an existing arrangement which allows the two institutions to co-operate closely in the fight against impunity on the African continent.
The aim of the arrangement is to deepen understanding and appreciation of the role and work of the ICC within the international criminal law and justice architecture.
The agreement was signed by representatives of the two institutions on 6 December 2019 in The Hague, on the sidelines of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP), which took place that month.
The new relationship between the ICC and ACICJ at GIMPA will lead to the development of courses which focus on international criminal law, participation in the ICC internship programme by GIMPA students, and participation in the ICC visiting professionals programme by GIMPA students and faculty.
It will also promote the exchange of speakers and collaborative initiatives such as lectures, seminars, events, research and surveys. The agreement is for a five-year period and is subject to renewal by the two institutions when the period lapses.
The ICC
The ICC remains, to date, the most successful mechanism for interstate collaboration on the establishment of an international criminal justice system to investigate, prosecute and try perpetrators of mass crimes of concern to the international community.
The origins of this international criminal justice system date back to the Nuremberg and Tokyo military tribunals, which were set up at the end of the Second World War to try cases of special international concern.
The resurgence around the globe – but particularly in Liberia, Rwanda and Yugoslavia – of mass atrocities which weighed on the conscience of people across the world, convinced the comity of nations that it needed to provide a permanent solution enabling the prosecution of international crimes to assist the fight against impunity, instead of the old, ad hoc responses.
Against this background, on 17 July 1998, 139 nations adopted the Rome Statute – the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court – to provide for a permanent jurisdiction to prosecute crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression.
Wilberforce Asare
Join the conversation. Call: 020 000 9951 or 059 415 7777. Or WhatsApp: 020 000 0995.
#AsaaseRadio
#TheVoiceofOurLand
