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	Congo is Bleeding. Where is the Outrage? by Denis Mukwege Panzi Foundation, agencies   Mar. 2025   Sudan: Our Silence in the Face of Genocide, by Nicholas Kristof. (NYT)   The world’s worst humanitarian crisis today is probably the web of famine, civil war, mass rape and other atrocities in Sudan, a nightmare that the United States has formally described as genocide.   Many tens of thousands have been killed, 11 million Sudanese have been displaced, the most lethal famine in decades may be underway, and Unicef warns that children as young as 1 year old are being raped.   Yet the Trump administration is now cutting back on humanitarian assistance, aggravating the starvation. And the Trump administration (and the Biden administration before it) has not been willing to call out the United Arab Emirates for having armed a brutal militia called the Rapid Support Forces that — according to survivors of its rampages — is committing massacres and rapes.   Do President Trump and his aides care about suffering in a distant land? I don’t know, but I think when we hear individual stories it may be more difficult for us to turn away.   With refugees pouring over the border into South Sudan, I visited two spots along the Sudan-South Sudan border to ask refugees about conditions in places foreign reporters cannot easily reach.   Musa Ali, 32, was an interior designer in Khartoum who lived a good life until the civil war began two years ago between the Sudanese Army and the Rapid Support Forces.   An army bomb a year ago destroyed his house and forced the amputation of both his legs, confining him to a wheelchair. Then food shortages grew so severe that neighbors began dying of hunger. Musa’s family members in other parts of the country were able to send him money to buy food.   “We would have died of hunger” if relatives elsewhere had not sent money, he told me.   Musa and his wife decided to flee to South Sudan. On the 11-day road journey, they were robbed at checkpoints by soldiers from the Rapid Support Forces, and they saw people killed along the way — mostly men who the militia suspected were supporting the army. Musa and his wife said they saw more than 100 corpses along the road.   Yassin Yakob and Sabah Mohammed, both teachers, also fled recently from the Khartoum area. They took back roads, so they largely avoided checkpoints. But they said that other vehicles also took those back roads — often trucks carrying dozens of refugees — and when the trucks broke down, people in them often starved to death because there was no food to be had.   “People’s bodies were next to the trucks,” Yassin said. “If your truck broke, you died. There was just no food.”   Over the last few years, USAid-supported soup kitchens opened up around the country and saved many lives from famine. But the Trump administration cut funding for those kitchens, called emergency response rooms, and more than 70 percent have already closed, according to Hajooj Kuka, a Sudanese humanitarian worker. He told me that at just one emergency response room, four children had died recently of starvation.   Manal Adam, 30, grew up in the Darfur region in Western Sudan and belongs to an ethnic group targeted in the genocide that began there in 2003; two of her brothers were murdered at the time; she wonders if her mother was raped as well. For a time the assaults subsided, but in the last couple of years the slaughter has resumed.   “It’s like history is repeating itself,” Manal said, and she haltingly recounted how men in Rapid Support Forces uniforms had stopped her on the road, thrown her to the ground and raped her.   After that, she fled to South Sudan with three of her children, hoping to keep them alive. But her husband was elsewhere, and her 9-year-old daughter was with her mother, so she left them behind in her panic. Manal doesn’t know if her husband, mother or daughter are still alive.   Manal is safe in a refugee camp in South Sudan but suffers from pelvic infections from having been raped. And she wilts as she describes her shame as other women point to her and gossip about her.   Multiply Manal by millions and you have a glimpse of the metastasizing crisis in Sudan. Famine is spreading, corpses line some roads and the sons of Darfur genocide rapists are now raping the daughters of women who had been assaulted a generation ago.   Rapid Support Forces have besieged the Zamzam refugee camp in Darfur, with 500,000 desperate, hungry people inside and almost no medical assistance, U.N. officials and aid workers say. In a social media post, the attackers have warned: “Zamzam will turn to ashes.”   I suspect that many Americans regard all this is sad but inevitable, viewing Sudan as a bottomless pit of pain that we can’t do anything about. Yet that’s not right.   I don’t know if we can end the slaughter. But in the early 2000s the West took actions that reduced the death toll, while this time we are worse than passive. Our cutting of humanitarian aid means more children starving, and our silence about the U.A.E. probably means more atrocities.   That’s the wrenching contrast. A generation ago, Americans were outraged by genocide and acted — not always perfectly — to provide aid and pressure governments in ways that saved lives. Now we are pulling back aid and largely silent about the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, and that comes painfully close to complicity.   http://reliefweb.int/report/sudan/sudan-two-years-war-starvation-global-failure-world-must-act-now http://www.nrc.no/news/2025/april/joint-statement---two-years-of-war-starvation-and-global-failure-the-world-must-act-now-for-sudan http://www.interaction.org/blog/addressing-the-humanitarian-crisis-in-sudan-a-call-to-action http://www.fidh.org/en/region/Africa/sudan/sudan-two-years-of-conflict-marred-by-global-failure-to-protect http://www.globalr2p.org/publications/twenty-years-of-the-responsibility-to-protect-and-the-unfulfilled-promise-in-darfur/ http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/04/new-bigger-humanitarian-crisis-in-darfur-but-this-time-no-global-outcry/ http://www.youtube.com/live/pbXvEC34-KU?t=880s http://www.interaction.org/statement/60-ngos-respond-to-terminations-of-life-saving-programs/ http://www.acaps.org/en/thematics/all-topics/us-funding-freeze http://www.icvanetwork.org/90-day-suspension-order-resources/   19 Feb. 2025   Congo is Bleeding. Where is the Outrage, by Dr. Denis Mukwege from the Panzi Foundation.   The world is witnessing a new era of conflict. In Gaza, images of devastation have dominated headlines for more than a year. In Ukraine, nations have rallied to defend sovereignty against aggression, deploying diplomatic interventions, sending military aid and enacting sweeping sanctions with urgency. Yet the war unfolding in the Democratic Republic of Congo remains an afterthought.   A bloody conflict is met with condemnations but no meaningful action. This stark contrast is not just neglect; it is selective justice.   Last month Goma, the largest city in the east of Congo, fell to the M23 rebel group, backed by neighboring Rwanda, as part of the group’s decade-long campaign to control the region’s mineral-rich territory. The assault on Goma resulted in nearly 3,000 deaths in the first week alone and thousands of injuries.   Today hospitals in Goma are overwhelmed, with many patients being treated in makeshift tents to handle the overflow. The blood supply is strained, the cost of food is skyrocketing, and access to water, electricity and the internet is severely limited. The U.N. uncovered that in the chaos, more than 100 female inmates at a prison were raped and then burned alive when the facility caught fire.   Congo has been plagued by war for nearly three decades. Millions of people have been displaced, and rape has consistently been used as a weapon of war. Most estimates state that over six million people have died, making it the deadliest conflict since World War II. But many of us who live in Congo believe that the real number is much higher. And the world remains largely silent.   I am a Congolese doctor. For 30 years, I have repaired the bodies of women brutalized by this war. Today I’m treating the grandchildren of my early patients. At Panzi Hospital and Foundation, the health center and nongovernmental organization I founded in 1999, we have treated over 83,000 survivors of sexual violence. Thousands have arrived pregnant by their attackers. Thirty percent of the sexual violence survivors we see are children.   The patterns of terror are unmistakable: villages burned, families slaughtered, women violated — not as collateral damage but as a calculated weapon of war, designed to instill fear, erase communities and seize control.   Rwanda chose its moment wisely to push farther into Congo. When M23 invaded in 2012, international pressure — particularly from the United States — forced the Rwandan government to withdraw its support. Its occupation of Goma ended in less than two weeks. But today that pressure is absent. While the world and media are fixated on the first days of the Trump administration, Rwanda apparently saw an opportunity to act without consequence.   Experts assembled by the United Nations have detailed Rwanda’s illegal exploitation of Congo’s rare minerals. And now, with global attention focused elsewhere, Rwanda has escalated its aggression — seemingly knowing that no meaningful consequences are likely to follow. (Rwanda has repeatedly denied any direct involvement in Congo.)   My country is home to huge reserves of the minerals essential for modern technology. It produces well over half of the world’s cobalt and contains 60 to 80 percent of the world’s coltan. From smartphones to electric vehicles, modern society is powered by Congolese minerals. For years, M23 has worked to make a business out of Congo’s minerals.   The recent U.N. group of experts’ report on Congo submitted to the Security Council indicates that M23 generates at least $800,000 per month from a tax on coltan production and trade from Rubaya, a major mining site it seized last year.   The U.N., along with multiple states and institutions, says that a significant share of Congo’s minerals is smuggled into Rwanda, which has been widely identified as a key transit hub for illicitly extracted resources from Congo.   Since the resurgence of M23 in 2021, many international bodies, including the European Union, have raised concerns about Rwanda’s support for the group. Yet the European Union recently signed an agreement with Rwanda to support so-called sustainable mineral supply chains, effectively whitewashing the world’s ongoing plunder of Congolese resources.   This is not the first time the world has overlooked violence in Congo. On Oct. 6, 1996, rebel forces entered Lemera Hospital in South Kivu, where I was the medical director, and massacred my colleagues and my patients in their beds. I was spared simply because I was traveling at the time. The 2010 U.N. mapping exercise documented this crime and many others committed from 1993 to 2003, but its examination of ways to end the violence and bring justice has largely been ignored.   The atrocities at Lemera and the impunity that followed marked the beginning of my desire to fight for peace and justice in Congo, as well as my devotion to ensuring that doctors providing lifesaving medical care will never again be at risk under my watch.   History is now repeating itself. After weeks of encircling the region, spreading panic and chaos, last weekend M23 seized control of Bukavu, home to over one million people and the site of Panzi Hospital. Terror and uncertainty grip the population, especially among those who survived past massacres.   How will the world respond to this calculated and systematic offensive? How many lives must be lost before this conflict is finally brought to an end?   The world has the power to act. We must all call on their leaders to take action and deliver justice for the Congolese people. States and international institutions must uphold Congolese sovereignty and place sanctions on Rwanda for its continued support of armed groups in Congo and plundering of Congolese resources.   The inaction must end. Our people deserve justice. Our children deserve a future. And the world must finally decide if the values it claims to uphold apply to all of humanity or only a chosen few.   * Denis Mukwege is the founder of the Panzi Hospital and Foundation and a 2018 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. The guest editorial was published by the New York Times.   http://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/19/opinion/congo-rwanda-rebels-war.html http://panzifoundation.org/dr-denis-mukwege-call-stop-the-massacres-of-the-congolese-peace-is-possible/ http://www.wfp.org/news/conflict-and-rising-food-prices-drive-congolese-one-worlds-worst-food-crises-according-new-ipc http://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/cholera-and-mpox-cases-increasing-dangerously-drc-aid-cuts-push-health-systems-near   Jan. 2025   In DR Congo, the persistence of colonial dynamics, plundering of resources, corruption, conflicts... contribute to the depoliticization of countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “Such narratives tend to reduce Africa to a simple recipient body of foreign policies,” say researchers Christoph Vogel and Aymar Nyenyezi Bisoka in AfriqueXXI, The Ideas Letter. (Extract):   “The contestation between the Congolese government, multinational corporations and international donors foreshadowing the reform of Congo’s mining legislation.   The country’s previous Mining Code, which dates back to 2002, was inspired by ideas from the World Bank. Resolutely neoliberal, it aimed to attract investors after two devastating transnational wars. It encouraged developing the mining sector through foreign direct investment, joint ventures and generous tax breaks for international mining companies. For the Congolese government, the application of overly favourable conditions was part of a strategy to attract investors in a difficult operating environment, but also to extract rents. In 2018, the Congolese government undertook to reform the 2002 law, making it more advantageous for the Congolese population and the country.   While the context had changed radically in 2018, most foreign mining companies operating in DR Congo opposed the proposed changes. The new law notably proposed removing the “stability clause” in the 2002 law, a hidden tax cap. In other words, companies feared for their fiscal advantages. Indeed, the 2002 law, partly ghost-written by World Bank officials, had identified “instability” as a major risk for the industrial development of the mining sector and inserted this provision.   In 2018, foreign mining companies reacted by expressing their opposition to the removal of this exemption, citing “instability” and the risks associated with foreign direct investment in so-called post-conflict contexts. This also alludes to a more generic stereotype of the DR Congo, describing the country as a “geological scandal” where violence would take precedence over politics – the notion of “conflict minerals” reflects this idea.   Employing this depoliticized imagery, mining companies justify fiscal deregulation as due compensation for the Samaritan act to invest and operate against all odds. Yet, tax exemptions may figure among the central aspects that prevent the population and the country from benefiting from mining.   Under-Mining Development   Foreign mining outfits opposed clauses that could have benefited the DR Congo and the Congolese population, such as increased state participation in existing joint ventures, increased royalties, new obligations to repatriate profits produced abroad, clauses limiting subcontracting to persons and entities legally recognized in the DR Congo and with a Congolese capital base, or a tax on super-profits, provisions through which the Congolese legislature intended to balance fluctuations in the global market.   This new tax for gains would kick in when the price of a “strategic mineral” would experience an unusual rise of more than 25% in comparison to weighted forecasts. Such tax provisions are common elsewhere, but in the DR Congo, foreign mining companies denounced them as protectionist and isolationist, thus going against the aspirations of Congolese miners.   What followed was a tug-of-war between multinationals and the Congolese government, marked by rare public visits by reclusive CEOs weary of shrinking profit margins. This created an impasse—not without displeasure of foreign and Congolese mining barons who continued to operate under the 2002 regulations—that has yet to be resolved. While the industrial copper and cobalt sector operates largely independently of the Congolese population and its workforce, much of the artisanal mining sector, focused on coltan and tin, had just recently undergone a reform that perpetuated colonial patterns of expropriation for access to and control of Congolese resources by creating a monopoly of buyers.   In sum, this reflects the reluctance of external interveners to consider political intentionality as a legitimate and serious expression of agency in Congo. On the contrary, Western-inspired paradigms (transparency or the fight against corruption and poverty) dominate the discourse to the detriment of examining the balance of existing powers, and therefore of understanding the struggles of the weakest part of the game: local populations.   * Christoph Vogel is an investigator and writer specialising in conflict and politics in Central Africa. Dr. Aymar Nyenyezi Bisoka is a lawyer, political scientist and Assistant Professor at the University of Mons in Belgium.   http://afriquexxi.info/In-DR-Congo-a-Western-vision-perpetuates-violence http://www.ipsnews.net/2025/02/african-leaders-challenged-to-unite-against-energy-transition-mineral-oppressors/ http://www.ipinst.org/2024/11/global-leaders-series-featuring-nobel-peace-prize-laureate-denis-mukwege#2 Visit the related web page
	Demand for International Criminal Court’s work unprecedented amid record high threats by UN News, ICC, OHCHR, agencies   6 June 2025   US decision to sanction ICC judges ‘deeply corrosive’ to justice: UN rights chief. (UN News)   The US Government’s announcement of sanctions against four judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday has been condemned by Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, as “deeply corrosive of good governance and the due administration of justice.”   Mr. Turk was responding to an announcement by Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, on Thursday, of measures targeting the judges, who are overseeing a 2020 case of alleged war crime committed in Afghanistan by US and Afghan military forces, and the 2024 ICC arrest warrants issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the former Defence Minister.   “I am profoundly disturbed by the decision of the Government of the United States of America to sanction judges of the International Criminal Court – specifically four women judges, from Benin, Peru, Slovenia and Uganda – who had been part of rulings in the situations in Afghanistan or in the State of Palestine,” said Turk, who called for the prompt reconsideration and withdrawal of the measures.   The sanctions, the statement continues, attack the judges for performing their judicial functions, an act which, he said, runs “directly counter to respect for the rule of law and the equal protection of the law.”   The statement by Mr. Turk follows the ICC’s strongly worded press release on Thursday, describing the sanctions as “a clear attempt to undermine the independence of an international judicial institution which operates under the mandate from 125 States Parties from all corners of the globe.”   The ICC reinforced its position on Friday with a release from the Assembly of State Parties –the management oversight and legislative body of the court – rejecting the US sanctions which, it declared, “risk undermining global efforts to ensure accountability for the gravest crimes of concern to the international community and erode the shared commitment to the rule of law, the fight against impunity, and the preservation of a rules-based international order.”   http://news.un.org/en/story/2025/06/1164136 http://www.icc-cpi.int/news/international-criminal-court-deplores-new-sanctions-us-administration-against-icc-officials http://www.icc-cpi.int/news/presidency-assembly-states-parties-expresses-deep-concern-and-rejects-us-measures-targeting http://www.ohchr.org/en/statements-and-speeches/2025/06/comment-un-human-rights-chief-volker-turk-us-imposition-sanctions   7 Feb. 2025   Statement of ICC President Judge Tomoko Akane following the issuance of US Executive Order seeking to impose sanctions on the International Criminal Court:   I note with deep regret the issuance by the United States of an Executive Order seeking to impose sanctions on the officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC, Court), harm the Court’s independence and its impartiality and deprive millions of innocent victims of atrocities of justice and hope.   The ICC is a judicial body which performs functions that align with the interests of the international community by enforcing and promoting universally recognised rules of international law, including the law of armed conflicts and human rights law.   As atrocities continue to plague the globe affecting the lives of millions of innocent children, women and men, the Court has become indispensable. It represents the most significant legacy of the immense suffering inflicted on civilians by the world wars, the Holocaust, genocides, violence and persecutions.When most of the States of the world gathered to draft the Rome Statute, they made the dream of many women and men come true. Today, the ICC is dealing with proceedings arising from different Situations across the world, in strict adherence to the provisions of the Rome Statute.   The announced Executive Order is only the latest in a series of unprecedented and escalatory attacks aiming to undermine the Court’s ability to administer justice in all Situations. Such threats and coercive measures constitute serious attacks against the Court’s States Parties, the rule of law based international order and millions of victims.   The ICC and its officials from all over the world realise daily its judicial mandate to determine whether certain individual conducts, within its legitimate jurisdiction, give rise to responsibility for international crimes.   We firmly reject any attempt to influence the independence and the impartiality of the Court or to politicise our judicial function. We have and always will comply only with the law, under all circumstances.   The ICC stands firmly by its personnel and pledges to continue providing justice and hope to millions of innocent victims of atrocities across the world, in all Situations before it, in the sole interest of human dignity.   I call upon all those who share the values enshrined in the Statute to stand united in the Court’s defence: our 125 States Parties, civil society and all nations of the world.   23 Jan. 2025   Statement by the Bureau of the Assembly of States Parties in support of the independence and impartiality of the International Criminal Court:   The Bureau of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute expresses its deep concern over sanctions measures against the International Criminal Court (“the Court”) and its personnel, as well as individuals and entities who assist it in investigating, arresting, detaining, or prosecuting certain individuals.   Sanctions can severely hamper ongoing investigations in all situations and other activities of the Court and affect the safety of victims, witnesses and sanctioned individuals.   The Bureau regrets any attempts to undermine the Court’s independence, integrity and impartiality. We reiterate our firm commitment to uphold and defend the principles and values enshrined in the Rome Statute and to preserve its integrity undeterred by any threats or measures against the Court, its officials, its personnel and those cooperating with it.   The Rome Statute represents an international commitment to end impunity for the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole. Safeguarding the Court’s integrity, including its judicial and prosecutorial independence, is fundamental to the successful discharge of its mandate to ensure accountability for such crimes and deliver justice to victims equally.   The Bureau emphasizes that the Assembly of States Parties stands firmly by the International Criminal Court, its elected officials, its personnel, and those cooperating with the Court. We stress the importance of the International Criminal Court in defending international justice and call on all States, international organizations and civil society to respect its independence and impartiality.   * The Bureau of the Assembly consists of a President, two Vice-Presidents and 18 members elected by the Assembly for three-year terms. The Bureau has a representative character and assists the Assembly in the discharge of its responsibilities.   http://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-president-judge-tomoko-akane-following-issuance-us-executive-order-seeking http://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-bureau-assembly-states-parties-support-independence-and-impartiality-international http://www.icc-cpi.int/news/icc-statement-occasion-80th-anniversary-auschwitz-liberation http://buildingtrust.si/79-states-parties-in-support-of-the-icc/   http://www.washingtonicc.org/2025-open-letter-regarding-sanctions-on-icc http://coalitionfortheicc.org/oppose-sanctions-against-ICC-safeguard-victims-access-justice http://www.coalitionfortheicc.org/cicc-urges-states-parties-defend-icc http://humanrightsfirst.org/library/sanctioning-the-icc-sets-back-justice-promoting-efforts-around-the-world/ http://www.justsecurity.org/110266/no-immunity-icc-respect/ http://news.un.org/en/story/2025/01/1158896 http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/01/un-experts-urge-us-senate-reject-international-criminal-court-sanctions-bill http://www.ohchr.org/en/opinion-editorial/2025/01/antisemitism   1 Feb. 2025   Uproar in Italy over release of Libyan police chief with ICC arrest warrant, by Angela Giuffrida for Guardian News.   After stepping off an aircraft belonging to the Italian secret services, Osama Najim was triumphantly carried on the shoulders of the crowd of supporters awaiting his arrival at Tripoli’s Mitiga airport.   Najim, also called Almasri, was not a footballer bringing home a trophy but a police chief wanted by the international criminal court (ICC) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including alleged murder, torture, enslavement, rape and sexual violence.   Two days earlier, Najim had been arrested by Italian police after the ICC had issued an arrest warrant. But the Italian government failed to validate the warrant and instead provided a government plane to fly him home from Turin.   As Tripoli celebrated, in Rome there was outrage and dismay. Opposition leaders demanded answers from Giorgia Meloni’s government, as critics accused Italy’s leadership of pandering to Libya because of its reliance on the north African country to stem the flow of migration towards Italy’s southern shores.   Human rights activists accused Italy of complicity in the long-documented mistreatment of migrants and refugees held in Libyan detention camps, while those most profoundly affected – the victims of Najim’s alleged crimes during their detention at the notorious Mitiga prison, one of the facilities under his watch – spoke of their pain at Italy “crushing” their already fragile hope of justice.   As the controversy raged on, Luigi Li Gotti, a lawyer and former justice ministry undersecretary, submitted a legal complaint that led to Meloni being placed under investigation for aiding and abetting a crime in connection with the Najim case. Meloni revealed the existence of the case against her – which includes interior minister Matteo Piantedosi, justice minister Carlo Nordio and Alfredo Mantovano, an interior ministry undersecretary – in a video message last week.   “I was appalled by everything that was happening,” Li Gotti told the Observer. “Why did we give back this [alleged] criminal who did all these things using such vicious methods, now allowing him to carry on doing those things?”   Najim, who also has Turkish and Dominican Republic citizenship, arrived in Europe from Tripoli on 6 January, making a stopover at Rome’s Fiumicino airport before travelling to London. A week later, he went by train to Brussels, before moving on to Germany, where he hired a car – using a Turkish driving licence – that he intended to drop off at Fiumicino.   The ICC arrest warrant was issued in six EU states, including Italy, on 18 January, the day Najim arrived in Turin. He went to a Juventus-AC Milan football match that evening and was arrested in a hotel room the next day by Italian police after a tip-off from Interpol.   The news of his arrest first circulated on Libyan social media networks before it was reported by Nello Scavo, a journalist on the Italian newspaper Avvenire, via Italian sources.   Italy’s justice ministry issued a vague statement regarding the ICC warrant but the arrest was only officially confirmed once Najim had been released and repatriated.   Amid lingering questions over why Italy did not validate the warrant, as it is obliged to under the ICC’s Rome statute, Meloni said Najim had been swiftly deported because he had been considered a risk to Italy’s national security.   “That we expelled him because he was deemed to be a highly dangerous character was even more mind-­blowing,” said Li Gotti.   In her video message, Meloni took issue with Li Gotti and Rome’s chief prosecutor, Francesco Lo Voi, insinuating that the investigation was part of a leftwing vendetta against her. “I am not blackmailable, I am not intimidated. Onwards and upwards,” Meloni told her social media followers.   On the contrary, critics believe the Italian government might have been blackmailed by Libya, its former colony. Apart from a deal that involves Italy paying the Libyan coastguard to stop migrant boats from leaving, the country has wide-ranging political and business interests in Libya.   The country is also important for the success of Meloni’s much-touted Mattei plan, aimed at increasing European cooperation on the African continent in return for curbs on irregular migration.   “In the absence of a precise explanation from the authorities, we only have a few theories,” said Scavo, who wrote about Najim in a book, Le Mani sulla Guardia Costiera, in which he describes the police chief as being “among the figures capable of blackmailing Italy and Europe with boats”.   Scavo added: “We know there was a lot of agitation in Libya over the arrest. So a danger was certainly perceived, a threat also for the Italians and the Italian companies who are in Libya. However, I believe this also represents an element of weakness for Italy, a G7 country, which felt threatened by Libya. If anything, this reflects greater strength from Libya’s power system.”   Meloni has long been at war with Italy’s judiciary, with her allies claiming she is being persecuted in a similar way to the late former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Relations are especially bitter as a result of judges having disrupted Italy’s controversial migrant scheme with Albania.   Moreover, it is unlikely that Meloni will face trial, especially given that it would need approval from parliament, where her government has a majority.   “Everybody knows that the investigation will not result in anything,” said Christopher Hein, a professor of immigration law and policy at Luiss University in Rome. “But this risks reducing the attention on what really happened in this scandalous Najim case.”   http://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/01/why-did-we-give-back-this-alleged-criminal-pressure-grows-on-meloni-after-italy-releases-wanted-libyan-police-chief http://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/24/world/europe/italy-libya-migrants-international-criminal-court.html http://www.justsecurity.org/107175/italy-libya-icc-cooperation-elmasry-arrest http://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-libya-icc-arrest-warrant-against-osama-elmasry-njeem-alleged-crimes-against-humanity   http://reliefweb.int/report/libya/iom-deeply-alarmed-mass-graves-found-libya-urges-action http://www.msf.org/libya-migrants-face-extreme-violence-and-exclusion-healthcare http://www.msf.org/people-are-beaten-sexually-abused-and-killed-libyan-detention-centres   28 Oct. 2024   Demand for International Criminal Court’s work unprecedented amid record high threats, coercive measures worldwide, ICC President tells UN General Assembly. (UN News)   Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly, Tomoko Akane, President of the International Criminal Court (ICC), said the past year has been marked by an unparalleled increase in demand for the Court’s work, along with unprecedented levels of threats, pressures and coercive measures which pose a serious threat to administering justice.   “Let me be very clear on this. We cannot give up. We will not give up,” Ms. Akane told delegates. Presenting the criminal tribunal’s annual report of its activities from 1 August 2023 to 31 July 2024, she said, it is “sadly” becoming increasingly more relevant in today’s world. “I say sadly, because this reflects a painful reality that countless innocent civilians live in pain and misery in all regions of the globe,” she added.   Stressing the Court is not a political institution, she said its judges will always be fully independent and impartial in carrying out their duties. “We are only bound by the law and we do not change the course of our actions due to threats, be them political or of another nature,” she said, adding: “We will continue abiding by our mandate undeterred, with integrity, determination, impartiality and independence at all times.”   The number of States parties to the Court will reach 125 — about two-thirds of the international community — on 1 January 2025, when Ukraine officially becomes a member after having deposited its instrument of ratification of the Rome Statute, the Court’s founding treaty, on 25 October.   Detailing the Court’s “extraordinarily busy period” for the past 12 months, she said there were outstanding arrest warrants against 20 individuals, including four arrest warrants issued concerning the Ukraine situation in 2024, when the report was submitted.   On 4 October 2024, Pre-Trial Chamber I unsealed six arrest warrants in the Libya situation, bringing the total to 26. This does not include many other warrants issued under seal and the enormous work done by the different Pre-Trial Chambers, she said.   While continuing to enhance its tracking capabilities, arrest warrants cannot be executed without States’ cooperation. “Again, the Court urges all UN Member States to assist the Court by cooperating on the arrest and transfer of individuals subject to outstanding ICC arrest warrants,” she said.   The Court’s first in absentia confirmation case is being held regarding the situation in Uganda on the charges against Joseph Kony. The victims of his alleged crimes have been awaiting justice for over 18 years.   At the trial level, Trial Chamber X convicted Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed between 2 April 2012 and 29 January 2013 in Timbuktu, northern Mali, in the context of control by Ansar Dine and Al-Qa’ida in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb, known as AQIM. The Chamber’s sentencing decision is scheduled for 20 November.   Hearings continued in the Yekatom and Ngaïssona and the Said cases from the situation in the Central African Republic and in the Abd-Al-Rahman case from the situation in Darfur.   During the reporting period, the Chambers issued 532 written decisions, in addition to oral and email decisions, and 158 hearings were held, she said. In 2023, 14 arrest warrants were issued, including those under seal.   Turning to the Court’s mandate towards victims of mass atrocities, she said reparations are an integral part of the tribunal’s proceedings. Reparations proceedings in the Katanga case concluded in April, with a closing ceremony held in Bunia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, marking a historic milestone.   Reparations orders in several other cases are being implemented and about 24,000 individuals, 53 per cent more than in 2023, are directly benefiting from medical treatment, psychological rehabilitation, socioeconomic support, education and peacebuilding activities through the Trust Fund for Victims. Sixty-nine per cent of the beneficiaries are women.   “We are truly at a turning point in history. The rule-based approach to the conduct of hostilities and global affairs and the very notion of international criminal justice is under significant threat,” she said. “It is up to the international community to decide whether the rule of law at the international level should be defended or whether we ought to revert to the rule of power”.   Cooperation with United Nations crucial for advancing Global Justice   Philemon Yang, UN General Assembly President said that while the Court is separate from the United Nations, cooperation between the two institutions is crucial to advance global justice and promote international peace and security.   At the heart of the Rome Statute is the principle of complementarity, which recognizes that the Court functions as a court of last resort, only exercising its jurisdiction where national courts fail to do so.   “Accordingly, strengthening justice systems at the national level, including through capacity-building initiatives should be a priority for us all,” he said.   Noting the conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan have seen the potential commission of heinous crimes, he said it is vital that impunity in these situations is not tolerated.   “States must prioritize accountability, ensure justice for victims and restore a sense of security within affected communities,” he stressed. 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