Letter to ICC States Parties, William Pace, Convenor of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, 6 July 2011
I am writing on behalf of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court’s Budget and Finance Team (‘Team’) to urge your government to support the adequate funding of the International Criminal Court (‘ICC’) in 2012 and to oppose repeated attempts by some states parties to enforce “zero growth” on the budget at a time when its important activities are increasing.
How the ICC budget works in terms of procedures
The ICC is expected to publish its budget for 2012 in the next weeks. The document will first of all be considered by the Assembly of States Parties’ expert body – the Committee on Budget and Finance (‘CBF’). The CBF will make recommendations for the Assembly’s consideration at its tenth session in December.
Since the referral of the Libya situation in February 2011, the ICC has had to meet the costs of the investigation and related activities by requesting resources from the Contingency Fund. The Fund was established by the Assembly to allow the ICC to respond promptly to unforeseen events. As the Financial Regulations of the Court prohibit the continued use of the Contingency Fund into the next financial period to fund activities which are clearly foreseeable at the time the budget is prepared, the resources to continue the Libyan investigations in 2012 must be provided for in the 2012 budget. Similarly, additional costs arising from the ICC’s expanding workload, inflationary costs and other essential costs to achieve its mandate must be approved in the budget.
The institution is already overstretched in a number of areas as a result of previous arbitrary cuts to its budget and under-budgeting by the ICC in response to such pressure. For example, in the case of the Prosecutor v. William Samoei Ruto, Henry Kiprono Kosgey and Joshua Arap Sang, the Registry recently informed the Chambers that the limited resources of the Victims Participation and Reparations Section prevent it from processing applications by victims to participate in the case in accordance with the timelines set by the judges
Furthermore, arguments that, if necessary, savings could be made by funding certain “noncore” activities – such as field engagement, witness protection, legal aid, outreach and victim participation activities – through voluntary contributions must be rejected. The proposals ignore the reality that the implementation of the ICC’s mandate depends on a range of interrelated functions. The ICC’s investigations, prosecutions, and trials cannot be conducted effectively unless they are supported through field engagement and presence, witness protection, legal aid, and outreach and victim participation activities to ensure victims can access their rights under the Rome Statute
