The highest prosecutor at the International Criminal Court is now London lawyer Karim Khan
British lawyer Karim Khan has been sworn in as the new chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, pledging to reach out to nations that are not members of the court.
Khan, a 51-year-old English lawyer, has years of experience in international courts as a prosecutor, investigator and defence lawyer. He takes over from Fatou Bensouda of Gambia, whose nine-year term ended yesterday.
In his first speech after taking the oath of office, and referring to the treaty that founded the court, he said: “The priority for me, and I believe that’s the principle of the Rome Statute, is not to focus so much on where trials take place, but to ensure that the quest for accountability and inroads on impunity are made.”
“The Hague itself should be a city of last resort.
“Wherever possible, we should be trying to have trials in the country or in the region.”
Khan said he wanted to work with countries that were not among the court’s 123 member states to achieve justice.
World powers the United States, Russia and China are not members and do not recognise the court’s jurisdiction.
“My conviction is that we can find common ground in the quest and in the imperative to ensure we eradicate genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes,” Khan said.
Most recently, Khan led a United Nations team investigating atrocities in Iraq, telling the Security Council last month that he uncovered “clear and compelling evidence” that Islamic State extremists committed genocide against the Yazidi minority in 2014.
In the past, he has defended clients at international courts including former Liberian president Charles Taylor and Kenya’s deputy president William Ruto.
Khan begins his nine-year term as the court’s prosecution office is struggling to keep up with demands for investigations.
The court prosecutes genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in nations unable or unwilling to carry out their own prosecutions.
He said he wants to reform the office and immediately address what he called a “gender and geographical imbalance” among its staff.
He also said prosecutors, who have lost several high-profile cases in recent years, had to improve their performances in court.
“We have to perform in trial,” Khan said.
“We cannot invest so much. We cannot raise expectations so high and achieve so little so often in the courtroom.”
His predecessor told The Associated Press in an interview earlier in the week that there was “a serious mismatch” between what the prosecutor’s office needed to do its work and what it was getting from the court’s member nations.
“We have more or less had an explosion of cases that we are supposed to be handling, but we cannot do it without adequate resources,” Ms Bensouda said.
She also had a warning for Khan that there were “attempts at every side, every corner, to politicise the actions of the prosecutor”.
Among the most politically charged investigations Khan inherits are those in Afghanistan — where prosecutors are pursuing cases against all sides in the country’s conflict, including allegations of crimes by American troops and foreign intelligence operatives — and in the Palestinian territories, where alleged abuses by Israeli forces and Palestinian militants are being looked into.