Why Nigerians, Africans Should Believe in the ICC, By Chile Eboe-Osuji
Dr. Chile Eboe-Osuji is the first Nigerian to be elected on the bench of the International Criminal Court (ICC). In a brief email interview with THISDAYLIVE, the former lecturer in international criminal law and legal adviser to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, explains how he sailed through a keen contest and addresses complaints against the Court by some Africans. Excerpts:
You recently won a seat as one of the judges of the ICC. How do you feel about it?
Quite wonderful, naturally.
How significant do you think this development is for Nigeria, Africa and yourself?
It is significant for me personally. No barrister could have hoped for a greater professional recognition. I imagine it is also significant for Nigeria, because this is the first time that a Nigerian will serve as a judge of the ICC. Friends have told me that it has done something good to the national mood. As Nigerians, we feel good when we win a major contest at the international level and for Africa, it is the only seat that came to the region in the 2011 ICC judicial elections. If it hadn’t come to Africa, we would have had a situation where six of the 18 judicial seats at the ICC would have gone to the West while only three seats would have come to Africa. So, it is significant for Africa as well.
It was a keenly contested election. Were you confident that you would win?
I was never diffident. I had a keen sense of respect for the opposition. But, the feeling of confidence would have been misplaced. It was a keenly contested election. In view of the odds, some had considered success in this campaign as a well nigh impossible proposition to contemplate in the beginning. There were even muted suggestions of withdrawing my candidacy, given the obstacles I had faced. Without a doubt, the opposition I faced in the other candidates was truly formidable. There were 19 candidates in all, campaigning to win a total of six vacancies. But four of the 19 would win four seats reserved for Latin America/Caribbean States (two seats); East European States (one seat); and Asia/Pacific States (one seat). That left only two floating seats for the remaining 15 candidates (including me) to go after. Many of the 15 were highly qualified and two of them were from geo-political super powers—UK and France—permanent members of the Security Council who are always represented on the bench of the ICC and who almost always get the seats they contest in international elections. The big fear was that if UK and France were after the two floating seats, they would win and Nigeria would go home empty-handed.
So, it was that all 15 candidates were chasing the two floating seats that the UK candidate and I ended up bagging only in the final rounds of the 15-round contest. The UK candidate won the first of the two floating seats in round 13. That left the candidate from France and myself standing in a two-way race in round 14, at the end of which I had scored 68 votes to his 45 votes. 76 votes were needed to win in that round, so there was no winner. France then withdrew him, and I stood unopposed in round 15 and scored 120 votes. 68 votes were needed to win in that round. All through the campaign and the elections, I did not stop to feel confidence or diffidence. I was simply focused on what needed to be done to succeed—the central element of which was to highlight my credentials. Luckily, I had a very wonderful team who worked hard to execute our strategy. It was a team made up of dedicated Nigerians representing different parts of the country. We did not deliberately set out to reflect the federal character in the team. It just happened that way. It goes to show that when Nigerians unite around a common cause and we apply ourselves, we can achieve results to be proud of—even in the face of the most difficult of odds.
What sort of contributions are you looking to make?
I shall bring to bear the full range of my knowledge, experience, intellect and industry to do justice in the cases to be brought before me in my functions at the ICC.
The ICC is often viewed by some as an international legal instrument that has functioned only against Africans. What's your take on that?
When you say ‘against Africans’ it is important to stop and think about the interests contemplated in that complaint. First of all, candour requires us to admit to the temptation to succumb to the emotional appeal of that complaint in the mind of the average black African who has been held up in passport lines in international airports abroad for a more extended check—to see if he is travelling on a forged passport or is on Interpol’s Red List—while other non-African travellers in the same passport lines are waved on uninterrupted. Concerns about racial profiling have also troubled the administration of criminal justice in certain multiracial societies—where people of African descent appear disproportionately represented at the penal end of the criminal justice system. Such instances of racial profiling have a way of making the mind particularly sensitive to any other situation where Africans appear to be the only ones being prosecuted when others are also committing the same crimes elsewhere. As a matter of policy, great care must be taken to ensure that the same concern is not allowed to trouble the administration of international criminal justice. Everything must be done to avoid that concern. It really is an unhelpful distraction—although the appeal in the complaint is only emotional and does not address the substantive questions of justice in the given case.
However, in the terms of substantive questions of justice, the proper course must be to insist that the concern reflected in your question must not be allowed to control the work of the ICC. That would indeed result in the negation of the true object of the ICC. 'To answer your question properly, then, we must keep in mind at all times that the ICC was never intended to pander to the violated dignities of persons who are not victims of international crimes. Rather, the ICC was intended—and rightly so—to pursue substantive justice for victims of the gravest atrocities and your assessment is bound to be different—and more positive—if you are a victim of these atrocities. It is more helpful, therefore, to look at the matter primarily from that perspective. I suspect that African victims of the grave atrocities being prosecuted are not complaining about their plight receiving what some might view as priority attention at the ICC. The complaint from victims would rather come from other regions of the world whose cases are not being prosecuted yet at the ICC. Their complaint would be: ‘How come the plights of African victims are receiving priority attention at the ICC? What about our own plights?’
I have heard implausible counter-arguments made to the effect that had the ICC been created during the colonial period, its main culprits would have been Europeans; and, had it been created in the 1970s and 1980s the main accused persons would have been South Americans. This supposes, of course, that the creation of ICC, as it were, at the turn of the present century should make Africa the primary focus of the Court’s work. In my view, that counter-argument is quite unhelpful. It plays straight into the concerns about negative profiling in the face of similar crimes committed elsewhere. Nor is it helpful to counter-argue that ‘Africa has had its fair share of events that involve commission of international crimes. Hence, it is not surprising that all the cases currently under prosecution at the Court are from Africa.’ Such counter-arguments do nothing at all to disentangle us from the game of comparative proportions and ratios of criminality (between Africa and other regions), at the centre of which is the oft-heard question: ‘Why has the Security Council referred certain events to the ICC and not others of a similar ilk and grade?’ The better approach is to try and limit ourselves, in considering the complaint at issue, to the perspective of the victims. Their interests must be central to the work of the Court. The dominant concern should not be conditioned by the indignation and abusiveness that we feel when minor immigration officers single us out in international airports for extended scrutiny and questioning in rough tones. But once you concentrate on victims’ interests as the dominant consideration in the work of the ICC, you will find that the complaint in the question you asked virtually becomes a non-issue.
At any rate—and here I must return to what I earlier described as the substantive questions of justice—the task for a judge is quite simply to adjudicate the cases presented to him or her, and make pronouncements on the bases of nothing more than the charge and the evidence presented. All these other concerns are wholly irrelevant to the task of the judge. They simply have no bearing on the question of guilt or innocence of particular accused persons. The fact that A is not also being prosecuted has nothing at all to do with whether B is guilty or not guilty as charged in the case under consideration.
Why should Africans believe and support the ICC?
Africans must believe and support the ICC. We simply must. This is especially so as long as the yearnings for accountability that motivated the creation of the ICC remain unfulfilled, as they have so remained. Once more, it is better to consider this question primarily from the perspective of the victims of the worst crimes. Should they believe in and support the ICC? I expect that they will say yes. Beyond that, it is possible to develop legal norms, inspired by the ICC, which might even assist in deterring violent usurpation or entrenchment of political authority as well as levels of corruption whose effects provoke questions of gross inhumanity. We are not nearly there yet. But, that possibility may be hoped for in the long run. Who knows?
Even with your win, do you think Africa is well represented on the bench? If no, how can that be addressed?
I believe that Africa could and should be better represented on the ICC bench. I think that there should be a formula that fully apportions seats on the ICC bench according to the number of ratifications that each region brings to the Rome Statute. I have difficulty with the present formula that allocates only three seats to the African region that has brought 33 ratifications to the table—the same number of three seats that are allocated to a region that has brought as little as 17 ratifications to the Rome Statute. I recommend a revised formula. Perhaps, an extra seat should be allocated to a region that has brought more than 32 ratifications to the table. It merely extends the existing logic of an extra seat for more than 16 ratifications. There are three floating seats that could be used in making that adjustment in future.
Source: This Day, 31st December 2011.
Chile Eboe-Osuji Makes History As He Becomes 1st Nigerian ICC Judge
EMPOWERED NEWSWIRE, NY
Nigeria has produced its first Judge of the International Criminal Court, ICC after 15 rounds of voting in New York leading to the election by the United Nations late on Friday of the Mr. Chile Eboe-Osuji, 49, an international legal practitioner.
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Eboe-Osuji, who is enrolled both at the Nigerian and Canadian bars is currently the Legal Advisor of the UN High Commission for Human Rights and before that he was the Head of Chambers for the UN International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda. This is his second attempt at the ICC Judgeship having stood also in 2008 ICC elections.
But it was a long road for him and Nigeria to clinch one of the 6 vacant seats at the world's permanent criminal court after 18 candidates from 18 countries started the contest on Monday afternoon at the UN headquarters.
Of the 6 vacant seats only two were available for countries in Africa and Western Europe and other states to enter, since the 4 other vacant seats were reserved for Asian countries and the Latin American and Caribbean groups at the UN. In previous elections to the ICC judgeships, groups of Africa and the Western Europe and co nations had their own reserved seats already.
In the event the first 4 winners came from those two groups of Asian states and the Latin America/Caribbean states
Regarding the other two generally opened seats, the fight was a straight one between 7 African countries, ( namely Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, Sierra Leone, Mauritius, and the Central African Republic, CAR) and two leading western nations, France and United Kingdom.
Although the African Union had endorsed only Nigeria and Mauritius for the election, the 5 other nations from the continent still went on to exercise their rights to nominate candidates for the election, thereby splitting African votes in 7 places and making it impossible for the early emergence of any African nation in the earlier voting rounds.
Eventually most of the African nations however pulled out of the race sooner, after the first round where Nigeria led the African pack with 34, followed by Mauritius with 27, CAR 1, Sierra Leone 3, DRC 12, Niger 7, and Burkina Faso 10. In fact only Nigeria, Mauritius and CAR stood among the African nations in the second round.
Commenting on the election which took the entire week, the Nigerian diplomat at the UN Permanent Mission in charge of Election, Mr. Richards Adejola praised the Permanent Representative of Nigeria at the UN, Prof Joy Ogwu for mobilizing other UN members behind Nigeria and also commended the candidate, Eboe-Osuji for his hard work at campaigning.
Said Adejola, who is known as Nigeria's campaign manager at the UN, "my work was made easier with the good product that Dr. Eboe-Osuji is, and he helped a great deal working together with us even at midnight at times."
Adejola disclosed that top federal government officials from Abuja including the Permanent Secretaries from Foreign Affairs and Justice Ministries were at the election working hard at mobilizing support for Nigeria's candidate all through the 15 rounds that lasted from Monday to Friday.
DETAILS of the voting rounds
Between the African votes, there was at the first round 94 votes, if which it had gone to one candidate it should have produced an African winner right from the first round since 77 was the required majority at the first round.
Subsequent rounds then left Nigeria confronting Mauritius, which also stood in the race for several rounds despite the fact that Nigeria clearly had the better chances of winning.
While Nigeria was duking it out with Mauritius among the African votes, United Kingdom and France were also in a tussle until the 13th round when the UK candidate emerged the 5th winner for the 5th vacant ICC judgeship seat.
Before that round 13 Nigeria had clearly established its leadership ahead of both Mauritius and France with 63 votes in round 12. But only Dominican Republic, one of the Latin group nations emerged at that round with 77 votes, followed by UK with 66. Nigeria came third ahead of France 46 and Mauritius 34.
It was after round 13 that Mauritius eventually pulled out after it had sent emails to UN members that it would stay in the race all the way to the end. Observers say had Mauritius not stepped down at that round, the rule would have been applied to knock it out since it was then a clear fight between Nigeria and France.
That was how Nigeria and France alone plunged into the 14th round causing a stalemate when Nigeria had 68 votes and France had 45, but neither got the needed 75 votes required 2/3 majority.
Eventually France opted out at that point making Nigeria to stand alone for the final round which was necessary since the candidate must still receive the 2/3 majority. At that 15th round, Nigeria got 102 votes while 12 abstained.
BIOGRAPHY
From http://eboe-osuji.com/shortbio.htm
A Very Short Biography
AGE: 49 years (born 2nd September 1962).
PLACE OF BIRTH: Añara, Imo, Nigeria.
PROFESSION: Barrister, since 1986.
FAMILY STATUS: Married, with three children.
CALLS TO BAR: (1) Nigeria; (2) Ontario, Canada; and, (3) British Columbia, Canada.
ACADEMIC LEGAL EDUCATION:
(1) Doctor of Laws (PhD) [in international criminal law], University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands;
(2) Master of Laws (LLM), McGill University, Montréal, Canada;
(3) Canadian Bachelor of Laws (LLB) Equivalency Studies, McGill University (for Certificate of Qualification of the Canadian Federation of Law Societies);
(4) Bachelor of Laws (LLB), University of Calabar, Nigeria.
PROFESSIONAL LEGAL EDUCATION: (1) Barrister-at-Law Degree, Law Society of British Columbia (Canada); (2) Barrister-at-Law Degree, Law Society of Upper Canada; (3) Barrister-at-Law Degree, Council of Legal Education of Nigeria.
SUMMARY OF EMPLOYMENT HISTORY: (1) CURRENTLY: (i) The Legal Advisor to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; (ii) Principal Appeals Counsel for the Prosecution in the Case of Charles Taylor (former President of Liberia), Office of the Prosecutor, Special Court for Sierra Leone. (2) FORMERLY:(i) Head of Chambers (i.e. the principal judicial legal officer), International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR); (ii) Senior Appeals Counsel, Special Court for Sierra Leone; (iii) Counsel, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, Ottawa, Canada; (iv) Senior Legal Officer in Chambers, ICTR; (v) Senior Trial Counsel for the Prosecution, ICTR; (vi) Prosecution Counsel, ICTR; (vii) Litigation Partner, Eboe-Osuji & Adetunji, Toronto, Canada; (viii) Litigation Counsel, Robinson Hinkson, Toronto, Canada; (ix) Litigation Associate, Russell & DuMoulin, Vancouver, Canada; (x) Litigation Associate, Ugochuku & Co, Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT: Former lecturer in international criminal law, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, Canada.
SUMMARY OF LEGAL SCHOLARSHIP: C Eboe-Osuji (ed), Protecting Humanity [Leyden, Martinus Nijhoff: 2010]; C Eboe-Osuji, Modern International Law and Sexual Violence in International Armed Conflicts[Leyden, Martinus Nijhoff: forthcoming 2011]; numerous articles and book chapters and guest lectures.
Source: EMPOWERED NEWSWIRE, NY, 17th December 2011.
Nigerian Emerges ICC Judge
From Tokunbo Adedoja in New York
After a tightly contested election which began last Monday, Nigeria's candidate in the International Criminal Court (ICC) judicial elections, Chile Eboe-Osuji, has clinched one of the six seats on the bench of the ICC.
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This is the first time Nigeria will have such a high ranking position in the ICC since 2002 when the Rome Statute - the legal basis for establishing the permanent International Criminal Court - came into force.
ICC is a permanent tribunal created to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and from 2017, it will also start exercising jurisdiction over crime of aggression.
Eboe-Osuji, who clinched the last available slot in the fiftteenth round of voting held on Friday at the United Nations headquarters in New York after securing 102 votes, will serve for nine years as ICC judge,
As at Thursday night, only two slots were left as candidate of Trinidad and Tobago, Anthony Thomas Aquinas Carmona, and that of Philippines, Miriam Defensor-Santiagor had emerged winners in the first round, while Czech Republic candidate, Robert Fremr, and Dominican Republic candidate, Olga Venecia Herrera Carbuccia, emerged in the second and twelveth rounds of voting respectively.
The candidate of Britain, Howard Morrison, clinched one of the two slots in the thirteenth round of voting after securing 72 votes. The candidate of France however withdrew from the contest after the fourteenth round, thereby living Nigeria to contest in the fifteenth round unpposed.
Countries whose candidates could also not secure the two-third required majority to emerge as ICC judge during the various rounds of voting include Colombia, Poland, Mexico, Cyprus, Costa Rica, Central African Republic, Niger, Burkina Faso, Sierra-Leone, Mauritius and Democratic Republic of Congo. Tunisia, another African country, withdrew before the first round of voting.
To demonstrate how crucial the election was to Nigeria, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Martin Uhomoibhi, and the Solicitor General of the Federation, Abdullahi Ahmed Yola, who is also the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Justice, were in New York to rally support for Eboe-Osuji.
In an election that also threw up the age-long Anglophone and Francophone dichotomy in Africa, top officials of the Nigerian Mission to the UN, including the officer incharge of elections at the Mission, Mr. Richard Adejola, engaged in high-level diplomacy throughout the week to ensure that Nigeria, and indeed Africa, clinched one of the available six slots on the ICC bench.
In a brief interview with THISDAY in New York on Saturday, Eboe-Osuji, described his victory as a "humbling experience", and thanked President Goodluck Jonathan, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Olugbenga Ashiru, Attonney General of the Federation, Mohammed Adoke, and the Permanent Representative to the UN, Prof. Joy Ogwu, for their support.
Eboe-Osuji, whose candidacy, and that of Mauritius, were endorsed by the African Union had served as Legal Advisor to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland, and also worked at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), where he served as Principal Legal Adviser to the Chambers between 2008 and 2009.
He was also a Senior Appeals Counsel at the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) and a Senior Legal Officer in the Office of the Prosecutor at the ICTR where he worked on the case of Bagosora, Nsengiyumva, Kabiligi and Ntabakuze, and the Semanza case.
Eboe-Osuji, who taught International Criminal Law at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law in Ontario, Canada, had appeared in several civil, constitutional and criminal cases at all levels of court in Canada, as a barrister.
Source: This Day, 18th December 2011.
After 15 Rounds Of Voting, Eboe-Osuji Emerges First Nigerian ICC Judge
FROM LAOLU AKANDE, NEW YORK
NIGERIA has produced its first Judge of the International Criminal Court (ICC), after 15 rounds of voting in New York.
The election by the United Nations late on Friday saw 49-year-old Mr. Chile Eboe-Osuji, an international legal practitioner, clinching one of the six vacant seats at the world’s permanent criminal court after 18 candidates from 18 countries started the contest on Monday afternoon at the UN headquarters.
According to the ICC’s final tally of the voting, Nigeria got 102 votes to pick up the final vacant seat.
Eboe-Osuji, who is enrolled at the Nigerian and Canadian bars, is currently the Legal Advisor of the UN High Commission for Human Rights. Before that, he was the Head of Chambers for the UN International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda. This is his second attempt at the ICC Judgeship having stood also in 2008 ICC elections.
But it was a long road for him and Nigeria. Of the six vacant seats, only two were available for countries in Africa, Western Europe and other states to enter, since the four other vacant seats were reserved for Asian countries and the Latin American and Caribbean groups at the UN.
In previous elections to the ICC Judgeships, groups of Africa and the Western Europe and co nations had their own reserved seats already, in the event the first four winners came from those two groups of Asian states and the Latin America/Caribbean states.
Regarding the other two generally open seats, the fight was a straight one between seven African countries, (Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, Sierra Leone, Mauritius, and the Central African Republic) and two leading western nations — France and United Kingdom.
Although the African Union had endorsed only Nigeria and Mauritius for the election, the five other nations from the continent still went on to exercise their rights to nominate candidates for the election, thereby splitting African votes in seven places and making it impossible for the early emergence of any African nation in the earlier voting rounds.
Eventually, most of the African nations, however, pulled out of the race sooner, after the first round, where Nigeria led the African pack with 34, followed by Mauritius with 27, CAR 1, Sierra Leone 3, DRC 12, Niger 7, and Burkina Faso 10.
In fact only Nigeria, Mauritius and CAR stood among the African nations in the second round.
Commenting on the election, which took the entire week, the Nigerian diplomat at the UN Permanent Mission in charge of Election, Mr. Richards Adejola, praised the Permanent Representative of Nigeria at the UN, Prof Joy Ogwu, for mobilising other UN members behind Nigeria and also commended the candidate, Eboe-Osuji, for his hard work at campaigning.
Said Adejola, who is known as Nigeria’s campaign manager at the UN, “my work was made easier with the good product that Dr. Eboe-Osuji is, and he helped a great deal working together with us even at midnight at times.”
Source: The Guardian, 18th December 2011.
Nigerian elected judge of International Criminal Court
A Nigerian, Chile Eboe-Osuji has been elected as one of the six judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC), reports the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in New York.
Eboe-Osuji and Morrison Howard of the U.K. were elected at the final rounds of the election held on Friday, during the 10th session of the Assembly of States Parties of the ICC at the UN Headquarters in New York.
The election of the judges began on Monday with the election of the first four, among them, two women, at the end of the 12th round of the elections earlier on Friday.
Eboe-Osuji recorded 102 votes, while Howard recorded 72 votes out of the 117 votes to meet the two-third required majority of votes before a candidate could be adjudged elected as a judge of the court.
Eighteen candidates contested the six positions. The first round of the elections produced two judges, while at the second round, only one judge was elected.
Other rounds, from three to eleven, did not produce any judge, until the 12th round when another judge emerged. Eboe-Osuji and Howard were elected in the last rounds.
The six judges are Carmona Aquinas - Trinidad and Tobago; Defensor-Santiago Miriam- Philippines; Fremr Robert - Czech Republic; Herrera Venecia - Dominican Republic; Morrison Howard - United Kingdom and Eboe-Osuji Chile - Nigeria.
Aquinas recorded 72 votes, Miriam; 79 votes, Robert; 77 votes, Venecia; 77 votes, Howard; 72 votes and Eboe-Osuji; 102 votes.
Speaking to NAN shortly after his election, elated Eboe-Osuji said: `` I am happy that Nigeria won a position in the ICC.
He, however, expressed appreciation to the Nigeria Mission in New York for the support given to his candidature.
Source: Next, 17th December 2011.
Nigerian Elected Judge Of International Criminal Court
A Nigerian, Chile Eboe-Osuji has been elected as one of the six judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC), LEADERSHIP gathered.
Eboe-Osuji and Morrison Howard of the U.K. were elected at the final rounds of the election held on Friday, during the 10th session of the Assembly of States Parties of the ICC at the UN Headquarters in New York.
The election of the judges began on Monday with the election of the first four, among them, two women, at the end of the 12th round of the elections earlier on Friday.
Eboe-Osuji recorded 102 votes, while Howard recorded 72 votes out of the 117 votes to meet the two-third required majority of votes before a candidate could be adjudged elected as a judge of the court.
Eighteen candidates contested the six positions. The first round of the elections produced two judges, while at the second round, only one judge was elected.
Other rounds, from three to eleven, did not produce any judge, until the 12th round when another judge emerged. Eboe-Osuji and Howard were elected in the last rounds.
The six judges are Carmona Aquinas - Trinidad and Tobago; Defensor-Santiago Miriam- Philippines; Fremr Robert - Czech Republic; Herrera Venecia - Dominican Republic; Morrison Howard - United Kingdom and Eboe-Osuji Chile - Nigeria.
Aquinas recorded 72 votes, Miriam; 79 votes, Robert; 77 votes, Venecia; 77 votes, Howard; 72 votes and Eboe-Osuji; 102 votes.
Speaking to NAN shortly after his election, elated Eboe-Osuji said: `` I am happy that Nigeria won a position in the ICC.
He, however, expressed appreciation to the Nigeria Mission in New York for the support given to his candidature.
Source: Leadership, 17th December 2011.