No Peace Without Justice, together with other 60 human rights organisations worldwide, is supporting the campaign “Justice for Darfur”, calling on the international community to ensure the prompt arrest and surrender to the International Criminal Court of the persons charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur, Sudan.
Today, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno-Ocampo, will again brief the United Nations Security Council on the status of the ICC’s Darfur investigation and the status of the outstanding arrest warrants issued last year for Ahmad Harun and Ali Kushayb.
The Justice for Darfur campaign is calling on the Security Council to use this occasion to call on Sudan to fulfil its obligations under Resolution 1593 (which referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC) and promptly arrest and surrender to The Hague these two suspects.
To date, the Sudanese authorities have persistently and outspokenly refused to cooperate fully with the ICC and ensure the presence of the two suspects summoned to appear before the ICC. No Peace Without Justice believes that Sudan will only comply with its obligations if the Security Council takes formal action to ensure its resolutions are upheld.
In the face of deteriorating security and fresh reports of atrocities being carried out by all sides, it is more critical than ever that the Council makes clear its commitment to ensuring those accused of bearing the most responsibility for such crimes are held accountable and the cries for justice from the people of Darfur are answered.
We, therefore, urge the Security Council to adopt a new Security Council resolution calling upon Sudan to comply with its international legal obligation to cooperate with the ICC’s investigation in Darfur and to surrender the two suspects to the ICC without delay, and providing for the Security Council to take other effective measures to ensure that any person subject to an arrest warrant issued by the Court is promptly located, arrested and surrendered to it.”
For more information, contact Alison Smith, Coordinator of the International Criminal Justice Program, at asmith@npwj.org or Nicola Giovannini at ngiovannini@npwj.org or +32 (0)2 548-3910.
