The Just Security Podcast

What Next at Int’l Criminal Court After the Prosecutor’s Removal?

• Just Security • Season 1 • Episode 140

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0:00 | 42:55

Host Ryan Goodman is joined by guests Rebecca Hamilton and Alex Whiting, experts with deep experience in the practice and study of international criminal law, to discuss the recent vote by states to remove Karim Khan as Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, effective immediately, for sexual misconduct against a junior staff member. They discuss what this investigation – and its defense – has meant for the ICC as an institution and for its ongoing cases, and what comes next for the ICC and its members.

Show Notes:

And for all of Just Security’s coverage of the ICC, see:

https://www.justsecurity.org/tag/international-criminal-court/


SPEAKER_01

Late last week, the Assembly of State Parties of the International Criminal Court voted by margin of 82 to 13 with 15 abstentions to remove uh the prosecutor of the international court, uh, Kareem Khan, effective immediately. And uh Khan was removed for sexual misconduct against a junior staff member. His lawyers have pledged to challenge the outcome. That will be the focus of our discussion today: the removal and what comes next for the International Criminal Court. I'm Ryan Goodman, uh, co-editor in chief at Just Security. And as our guests today, uh Professors uh Rebecca Hamilton and Alex Whiting wrote an essay in just security following the decision of the Assembly's say parties, and I'll just quote it at the outset: quote, the vote by the states to remove Mr. Kahn was decisive and based on an extensive and lengthy investigation. That said, the episode has exposed deep problems with the court's internal governance structure and fractured its various constituencies, all amid the most challenging period in the court's existence. If the court is going to fulfill its mission of justice for victims and survivors of the gravest crimes, much hard work lies ahead. So then, some of the questions that I think will frame our discussion are what does the episode mean for how sexual misconduct allegations are investigated by an international organization such as the International Criminal Court? Second, what fractures were created in the international legal community about how the investigation and removal were handled, and what comes next for the international court and those who support its work and the next uh prosecutor. So uh Beck and Alex are foremost experts in this space, some of the clearest thinkers in any case, but especially in this space as well. It's really a privilege to be with you guys uh for this discussion. Would you mind just first introducing yourselves and saying a little bit about your own professional background and having worked at the court?

SPEAKER_00

Uh sure. Thank you for hosting the conversation, Ryan. Uh I'm a professor of law at American University, Washington College of Law. I uh worked in the immediate office of the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court from 2007 to 2009. I'm part of the Association of International Criminal Uh Law Prosecutors, and I have stayed engaged with the court's work ever since.

SPEAKER_02

Uh it's great to be here with both of you. Um I'm Alex Whiting, and I have worked at a number, I'm a professor of practice at Harvard Law School at the moment. I've worked at a number of tribunals in The Hague. Um, I was at the at the International Criminal Court from 2010 to 2013 as the investigation coordinator and then the prosecution coordinator.

SPEAKER_01

Great. Um, so I thought to start out by just level setting um first couple of questions to Beck and then to you, Alex, and to level set first to with Beck kind of just laying the groundwork of what happened and in terms of the facts and how the Assembly of State Parties voted, and then to Alex to start laying out the procedure that um preceded uh the vote by the Assembly of State Parties. So, Beck, can you just give us a bit of a summary of what were the um factual allegations or the substantive case against Kareem Khan as alleged by uh the complainant?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so you know, I should start by saying none of us have seen the underlying investigative record that remains confidential. Um, but after the investigation was complete, I want to say just over a week ago, maybe 10 days ago, the complainant, um her name is Sarah, she's asked the media not to use her full name. Um, she spoke publicly about her experiences for the first time. She did an interview with Christiane Amanpoor. For anyone that hasn't watched it, it is painful viewing, um, but I think it is important. Uh, what you see is a young woman who is very sincere and is also visibly traumatized as she recounts uh sexual harassment by Mr. Khan that was taking place for more than a year uh at the office in The Hague, as well as on official court missions overseas, uh, escalating to non-consensual sexual conduct, uh, including digital and genital penetration. And it's worth underscoring here that Mr. Kahn was the chief prosecutor at the court. Sarah is a junior lawyer, his direct subordinate. Um, and you know, we all come at this from our own positionality. I'm no different. Um, but I do really want to take a moment at the top to highlight that as this whole conversation has played out in public over recent months, we've seen a huge amount of focus on what is and has been at stake for Mr. Khan, what is at stake for the court. All of that is appropriate, um, but it has not in any way been matched by considering um what has been the situation for the complainant here. And there's being just a sort of striking lack of empathy or or really disregard um for what it would have been like as a young professional in the workplace uh to live in fear of retaliation by someone who has so much more power than you. Uh so that is the context for the allegations as we in the public understand it at this point.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you. And uh in fact, that's also why I wanted to have that be the first question to foreground that, um, because I think otherwise it has been exactly what you said back diminished or lost in large parts of the conversations. And I also uh highly recommend the uh very lengthy interview uh that she did with Christian Emmanuel, things about 45 minutes. Uh it's very detailed, um, highly credible. Um there's no I I don't think anybody objectively could look at that interview and not walk away with that impression. Um so the uh second question I just wanted to also lead out with you, Beck, is you also wrote a piece for just security preceding the vote. You and Alex wrote a piece separately uh after the vote, but preceding the vote, your piece was about how the Assembly of State Parties should frame the question that they had before them as to the decision as to whether or not to remove uh Mr. Khan. Can you just talk a little bit about how you actually think the Assembly of State Parties did frame the question or decided the question that was presented to them? Um and just to lay out there a little bit more what I mean by that is there are different ways of thinking about the decision. Is it, you know, whether or not to punish a person, whether or not to think about the interests of the institution, what kind of proceeding is even is this? Um so can you just talk a little bit about how you see the whole matter having gone down on Friday?

SPEAKER_00

And I think that that question of what kind of proceeding even is this was really important to get clear on before the vote. And I, you know, in that piece was coming back to what is the Rome Statute, which is sort of effectively the constitution of the court. Um, what does it say? And and it's very clear under Article 46 um that removal comes down to an absolute majority vote of the Assembly of States parties, so that is all the states that have joined the ICC on a finding of serious misconduct by the prosecutor. What the Assembly of States Parties is not, is an appellate court that is reviewing procedure. It is not a criminal court. It is not making a criminal adjudication. And similarly, removal is not a criminal sanction. What it is, you know, the best analogy that I could come up with, certainly for a US audience, is effectively an impeachment vote, right? It is a vote on the fitness for office. And one of the core mandates of this court is to investigate sexual and gender-based violence. The court is asking victims and survivors of these crimes at immense personal risk to come forward and provide their testimony. And in that context, with the majority of states finding that there had been serious misconduct by Mr. Kant, the removal vote, I think, needs to be understood simply as a judgment that he is not fit to lead this institution given its mandate.

SPEAKER_01

Um and then Alex, I want to turn to you and then back to both of you. So this is like a multi-part question. Um, so from some quarters, there were criticisms raised about the process of how the court went about investigating Mr. Kahn and then assessing his conduct. And so, first, Alex, to you, could you just like briefly describe the four-stage process, I think three or four-stage process, as to how it all went through the International Court and the different bodies that looked at the case. And I think just even in the way that you describe it, for some listeners or uh folks watching this, they can um better understand what each of those bodies were, what their responsibilities were, because there's a lot of misunderstandings being communicated, um, whether deliberately or not, about them. So just if you could just laid the groundwork for that in the different bodies that looked at the case along the way. Um and we'll be trying to avoid acronyms, one of them being like the first body being the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services or OIOS. And then, second, this is the part of the multi-part question for both of you, um, and maybe starting with you, Alex. Um, I want to try to articulate what I think are the strongest criticisms so that people have them in their um most charitable and strongest forms. So I think there are two main ones that I'm aware of, or in my estimation, are the two strongest criticisms or claims that were made. One criticism was that the International Criminal Court appointed a panel of eminent judges to review the OIOS's findings, and the panel unanimously concluded that the evidence did not support removal, and was then, according to this criticism, a political decision by the next body, which was a Bureau of State Parties after the panel of judges, uh, to reject the judge's conclusions. That's criticism number one, that these are the three-judge panel, they adjudicated it, decided the evidence wasn't sufficient, yet it all went forward. That's criticism one. And then criticism two is a due process claim that uh Mr. Kahn was denied due process. If you're ever gonna have any institution exact some kind of penalty against somebody, it should only be done after that individual has due process. And the strongest form of the criticism is in a sense that one of the strongest forms of the criticism, that he should have been provided the uh right, the ability to present his case or his lawyers to present the case on Friday to the full assembly of state parties. So, Alice, can you just lay out what exactly those stages of the process were? And then if you can both jump in on addressing the criticisms that have been circulating.

SPEAKER_02

Right. So I I I think it's important to dig into the procedure, not to get too much into the weeds on it, but to kind of get clear on what the procedure was. Uh, because it and to echo what you both said about the complainant and um her interview, the procedure ended up being the the focus of much of the debate and what it what it meant for the court and what it said about the court, and people read into it all kinds of things about the court. And what got lost, as you both said, was the victim and the complainant and the actual conduct. So I thought it was important for her to do that interview to kind of recenter that discussion and put the focus back on where it should be. But just to get to lay out the process. So when this when this all broke some 20 months ago, the ICC set up a process where a multi-stage process in order to conduct an investigation and look into these allegations. And the first step was to have the Office of Internal Oversight Services, which you just mentioned, uh OIOS of the United Nations. It's a it's an internal body that does these investigations. First step was to have them conduct an investigation, collect all the information, interview all possible witnesses, um, collect any corroborating information. Uh as best that that report, their work is, as Beck said, confidential. But as best we can tell, they interviewed both the victim and Mr. Kahn. They interviewed all possible corroborating witnesses, collected all possible corroborating evidence. Um that process took a very long time, and I think that's one of the criticisms of the process. It took much too long. Um, but ultimately that body put together a report which didn't draw any conclusions about the evidence, but just laid it all out in its raw form. This person said this, this person said this, this email said that, and so forth. Just presented in its raw form all of the information. The second stage was uh you you made reference to the the three-judge panel that was appointed by the court to review the um uh investigative report from the Office of Uh Internal Oversight Services. Now, that panel was uh tasked to uh uh decide whether the evidence in the report satisfied the legal standard of serious misconduct beyond a reasonable doubt. But the problem was in the design, because the the fact-finding and the adjudication were separated into two different bodies, uh the investigative body and then the law and then the the judges. And so the judges uh really had no way, no mechanism to resolve the disputes, the contradictions, the disputes in the facts, in the accounts, Mr. Kahn's account and the victim's account. And so at the end, the three-judge panel, as you said, came to the conclusion that they could not find beyond a reasonable doubt, serious misconduct because they had no way to resolve the the um disputed facts. The next stage was this all then went to the Bureau of the Internet of the Assembly of States parties. The Bureau is a body, a a body of uh, I don't remember how many states, maybe 20 states? 21. 21, yeah. 21? 21 states. Uh it is it's a body that's um uh created in the Rome statute, uh, and it basically it's it's 21 states that gets elected for a period of, I think it's two years, uh, and they essentially manage the Assembly of States parties, which is 125 states. Um, and the Bureau then received all this information, and they then passed their own judgment uh on the report and on the advice given by the three judges. Uh and they by uh apparently, this has not been made public, but it's been reported that by a two-thirds majority, they concluded that Mr. Kahn had conduct had engaged in serious misconduct as defined under Article 46 of the statute, and then referred it to the Assembly of States parties for a vote, which is what occurred last Friday. So those are the stages of the process. Now, I think it's important to say that not only did the not only was this process uh probably ill-conceived from the beginning, because the the fact-finding and the adjudication were separated, making it impossible to come to any kind of conclusions. But it was also, and this is really important, uh, it was also always clear that the this that the opinion or the whatever the three judges came to, whatever result decision that they came to, that that was always advisory. That was never going to be the conclusive opinion uh decision. Um as Beck said, the Rome statute uh entrusts this decision with the Assembly of States parties, not with a three-judge panel. Um it's for the ASP to make that decision. Um, and so it was always going to be their decision, and the judges uh was going to be um advisory. So that gets to your first the first objection. And that I think is the objection we hear the most is is the you know the judges reached this conclusion um and this was ignored by the political bodies and it was a political decision. No. Um, first of all, I think that overstates what the judges did, what they were able to do in the process. Um, they they this was not really an adjudication. This was a kind of throwing up their hands. We can't come to any conclusion here. But but no matter what you think about what the judges did, the it it was never going to be the the process that the ASP would simply defer the decision to the judges. It was their decision to make. So I think that um that's that's the with respect to the first objection. The second objection about the uh Khan, Kareem Khan not having an opportunity to present his defense, I don't I I just don't understand that um because this process went on for 20 months. Um by all accounts, um uh Mr. Khan and his lawyers had every opportunity to respond to the report, to present evidence, to be interviewed, to to dispute the evidence, to challenge it. And um I and and so I think that he he had a full opportunity through the process to challenge and present whatever evidence was available. And and and I I I don't I don't there's no provision in the in the rules that he'd be allowed to present to all the states parties, and I'm not I don't understand what that would have added.

SPEAKER_01

Um Beck, do you want to jump in with anything on the criticisms and the process?

SPEAKER_00

I mean, Alex, you did a frank summary there. You know, on the latter point, I I think, you know, for those that aren't steeped in in the ICC, you just conceptually it's sort of familiar from domestic practice when we think about notions of like materiality or harmless error, it is not the case that every time there's a procedural irregularity that necessarily has a substantive impact on the outcome. And in this particular case, you know, as Alex said, um, when we have Mr. Kahn having been given full and and complete opportunities throughout this lengthy process to present his position, um, it is it is difficult to square that with with this two process claim. Um, all of that said, I think at the same time, and and and it's good, Ryan, that you separated out the two criticisms, um, at the same time, it's very clear that the ICC was caught flat-footed. Um, it was without an established, detailed, or workable um process in place at the outset for investigating a serious allegation against its highest elected official. Um, and that is damning of the court as an institution, and it's going to be critical going forward. Um, it was not good, obviously, for anybody involved. Again, let me bring up um the complainant in this situation and what is already massively stressful, the anxiety um by the lack of clarity around the procedure. Um and, you know, it took forever. The court has had this shadow hanging over it now since 2024. It's been without the chief prosecutor since March of 2025 while operating in this very hostile geopolitical environment. And all of the lack of clarity and contention around it has opened up space for claims of political interference, um, which is something further that we can discuss. So the ICC needs to get its own house in order going forward in terms of how it addresses um workplace misconduct. Um, I guess I would would only add, because I haven't seen it elsewhere, and and maybe this is not um, well, certainly this is not specific to the court, but to the extent that the court is going to take stock, um you have, as you so often have, in a need to scenario, a um alleged abuser at the height of his career with access to the best um legal defense that money can buy with social capital. Political capital. You have a complainant who is so often a subordinate, someone junior, who doesn't have those resources. Again, this is not unique to the court, but it is an ongoing structural problem to think through when looking at these kinds of investigations of sexual misconduct in the workplace.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And just to add a couple of additional thoughts to that, I think even just from what you both just described and discussed, there are many lessons here. Not as you just said, Beck, it's not unique to the court. It's for intergovernmental organizations writ large to in advance of going through these kinds of issues, they could better adjust their procedures, the structurally support for complainants and the rest of it. And I just want to flag for people to be thinking about, including the Assembly of State Parties, as they move forward in revising their own procedures for handling these kinds of matters, is the beyond reasonable doubt standard. You know, when I first encountered that, I thought, what on earth is the criminal standard for whether or not somebody is subject to imprisonment doing in these contexts at all when it comes to senior officials in intergovernmental organizations accused of gross misconduct, let alone uh sexual violence, sexual abuse, or the like. And uh it's I my sense is uh that it is the prerogative of any group of state parties to an international organization to come up with their own procedures. They don't have to go to a default as to whenever that standard should or shouldn't apply. They can um create their own standards for their internal uh compliance and the rest of it. So just a real um strange place in terms of people as you also describe it back, like just taking a step back and the power disparities here, and then all those power disparities and beyond a reasonable doubt uh for the uh uh alleged perpetrator, it's um really it doesn't seem to make sense, especially in our day and age of understanding these kinds of issues. Um, I do want to address uh what some will think of as an uh quote unquote, you know, an elephant in the room. Um so in mentioning the fact that the court is under an enormous geopolitical stress, political um pressures, and things like that, some argue that the diplomatic effort to remove Mr. Khan was driven in some significant part uh by the United States and Israel to try to remove the prosecutor for seeking the arrest and prosecution of Benjamin Netanyahu. So the argument is um behind the scenes, uh, Israel and the United States have been doing many things. A lot of them have been reported about um opposing the court and opposing Khan for the investigation uh in Gaza. And the criticism is, and the idea is, that that was also uh at play in uh these procedures and the decision to remove him. So I just wanted um either of you or both of you to address is that correct and your estimation that the outcome or the ultimate outcome, the uh ASP, the Assembly of State Party's uh decisive decision to remove Mr. Khan, let's put it this way, would not have occurred uh without the factor that I've just described of um US government and Israeli government uh pressure.

SPEAKER_02

So so I I I'm happy to jump in on that first. Um I I think there's just no evidence of that. And I to to to echo um some things that uh um that Beck was saying about the process, the the process was broken. Um I think ultimately it was fair uh because the critical elements were complied with. Mr. Khan, it the the the allegations were investigated, Mr. Khan had an opportunity to defend himself, many opportunities to present his defense and his account of event of events, and the body that was responsible for making the decision made the decision under the required statute and rules. Um so I think there ultimately was a fair process, but it was a mess. And the and as you said, Ryan, the the the ASP is the Assembly of States parties, is going to have to think about how to fix this process to make it um more to go more quickly, make it more streamlined, to make it make more sense, to should merge together the fact-finding and the adjudication, uh and to communicate more clearly about it. All those things have to be done. But though those failings, as Beck said, I think this real this is like a really, really important point that she said, is that those gave those failings gave the opportunity for these arguments that you just made that that that in it well, if the procedure is not being followed, that can only be explained by political forces at work. And what are those political forces? Well, of course, it's the United States and Israel pushing back and trying and punishing the court and pun or more specifically punishing Mr. Khan. But there's just simply no evidence that that that that that the ultimate outcome that 82 states that voted in favor of removing Mr. Khan were that those that that that that that outcome was was caused by the United States and and Israel. Now, of course, those countries capitalized and made hay of this and celebrated it and and and and and so forth. That's that's what's you know, that's what states do, and that was to be expected, and that's part of the reason you don't get yourself into this situation, right? It's because states are going to take advantage of it. But but that's a really different thing from saying that that's why the states made the decision that they did. The states, I'll I'll say two things about this that not not only is there no evidence, but there's no reason to think that this is what caused it. Because number one, the states, in my experience, my uh in my experience, the states really do care about the workplace culture at the court. Um, this has been a major issue for them in the selection of Mr. Kahn, in the in the how they monitor the court, um, some of the steps that they've taken. They really care about that. Is a very important issue for them. And secondly, the the the states have been largely supportive of the court's work and letting the court be independent. And there's no there's been no indication that the states have been out to remove Mr. Kahn or remove the prosecutor before Mr. Kahn for controversial decisions that they made. Um, so to tie, I think it's a mistake to tie this um event. This is this is, as Beck said, this is about misconduct. The states kept their eye on the ball, they focused on that, and I think that's what the decision was here.

SPEAKER_01

Um, Beck, do you want to add anything?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, uh really echoing uh that, but I I just want to be clear because um there's been a a number of claims out there, should we say, that that anyone who has been focused on the misconduct allegations has been thereby ignoring the geopolitical realities. Um, but in truth, there is more than one thing going on here at the same time, and we have to be able to hold the complexity. It is true that we have this serious allegation of sexual workplace misconduct, and it is true that there is a campaign by Israel in relation to the Netanyahu Warrant, and I would say just like Russia in relation to the Putin Warrant and the Sudanese government in relation to the Bashir Warrant back at the time. Um, you know, it is fighting hard for impunity, it's lashing out against the court. On top of that, we have this huge campaign by the Trump administration to destroy the court entirely, and to add a further layer, we have a global south, much of which is still skeptical of a court that in its first 15 years uh only put African defendants in the dock. And so it's just that it is possible to acknowledge all of those geopolitical realities without saying that they must be the decisive factor in this completely separate claim of workplace sexual misconduct. And unfortunately, the concurrence of those two things, I think, helped to generate the sort of toxicity around this. And, you know, speaking of elephants in the room, you know, there's a couple that I think are worth naming. There was a disinformation campaign to suggest that the complainant was a puppet of the Israeli government. Um, absolutely no evidence to suggest that that was true. And yet she's ended up in a position of being on Christiane Almanpour having to defend herself against exactly that allegation. The other really sort of pernicious narrative that started to creep in, and and Brenda Hollis did a good job yesterday of kind of confronting this, but the idea that Karim Khan was the ICC when it came to the Israeli arrest warrants, this idea that a vote to remove him would be an end to the warrants. Um, but in reality, he's only ever one person. Um, he's a very important one in the court, he was, but the court is more than one man. And those arrest warrants came to fruition through the work, tireless work of investigators, of prosecutors. It was the three judges that actually issued the warrants. Um, and so I think it does a great disservice to all of that work of all of those people to have kind of created this narrative around tying um Mr. Khan's survival to the survival of justice for for Gaza. Now, none of that is to say that Israel wouldn't have lobbied very hard for his removal, the US as well. Um, none of it is to deny those geopolitical realities. It's just to say that um based on the information that we have, the ASP has a statement on its website being very clear about that, that the vote was, quote, not related to the conduct of investigations or proceedings for the court.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Um, and I might even just, you know, add a punctuation point to both what you said, which I I always hesitated to say anything because I think you both um articulated that in such a powerful way, um, with different points to it. But uh, you know, punctuation point on it as well as the statement by the Palestine's uh mission to the Netherlands right after the vote. And in some sense, I the way I interpret it is the statement is essentially saying the same thing of this was not a vote about the uh the uh situation in in Gaza. This was a situation meaning like the prosecution investigation of the situation in Gaza. This was something separate about Mr. Khan and the allegations against him. And in some ways, I even think of that as like you know, having to run this rearguard action against the narrative that was being created by some uh that the vote to remove Mr. Khan was having to do with um a, you know, the assumption being like a successful campaign on the part of Israel and the United States on the issue of the uh Gaza criminal prosecution uh and investigation. And for those who support that criminal prosecution investigation, like the uh Palestine uh mission, they're actually trying to now fight against that uh narrative that was created in that moment. And I I wonder if some people who are creating that narrative will now switch, uh in fact, uh, because it has a different um outcome to it. Um so I just wanted to do a final kind of question about what is, in some sense, more the bulk of the piece that you two wrote at Just Security, which is very forward-looking and thinking about the future of the court, since this is obviously an inflection point and now a kind of a refresh as the court moves to select a new prosecutor. And if you can both talk about that issue, which is one, as we've described in this conversation, there is a rupture, um, for lack of a better word, within the international legal community of scholars and the like who have traditionally just supported the court in various ways, rupturing over the way in which the process happened. So, what can repair that rupture? How should people think about overcoming that rupture? And then who are the kind of key actors in trying to build back support for the court and the work that it has to do in the future across the globe?

SPEAKER_00

No, I was leaving that to you. Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Well, so I I think um, first of all, with respect to the rupture, and and this is to kind of pick up on the point that you just made, Ryan, uh what what what is uh um difficult and painful about this is the this this whole thing, is that um, you know, I think that many, if not all, the people who have been debating this issue with Mr. Khan uh ultimately wish for the success of the International Criminal Court. And this infighting, you might say, is ultimately terrible for the court. And the court has enough enemies already around the world. We've mentioned, you know, the campaign of the United States, but but there are many countries that are are are moving away from the court from international obligations and institutions. The court needs all the friends and support it can get, it needs people kind of working to support the court. So we have to find a way now to move beyond this and move with the the the vote has been taken, the there were it was toxic, there was bitter fighting, but the vote's over, the case is over, and now we have to move forward. And I think this is one of the things that we tried to say in our piece. And now we really have to look forward, and I and I and I think it's important for the for people to find to find a way to kind of come together to think of now, focus on the court and how to make the court better in specific ways with its procedures, but also succeed in the world in its in its in its critical mission. And the court, as you both have been saying, the court and as everybody knows, it's an incredibly challenging time. I mean, the last few years we have seen dramatic events at the court, and that both both that have been instigated by the court, the court bringing arrest warrants in Ukraine, in Palestine, the case against Rodrigo Duterte, which is proceeding at the court, a lot of activity, a lot of events at the court, and then and then of course the court being the focus. And I think that the now the I think that the the state's parties and the supporters of the court really now by necessity have to kind of take stock. Um a new prosecutor has to be appointed. It should be a prosecutor that's appointed for a full nine-year term. There should be a full process to do this. Um uh find somebody who can manage the court and manage these, you know, these issues. And the and we really have to think about who this the commitment of the states to the court and about who will be the best prosecutor to lead the court in these incredibly difficult times.

SPEAKER_00

So, I mean, a couple of aspects of of that, um, as we look forward to the election of the next prosecutor, historically, this has been a contentious process, um, has been plagued by the same problems of procedure. Um and so while I think it's it's one of those situations where the Assembly of States parties needs to move fast in the sense that we currently have a court without a highest elected official in charge, and that is just a problem for the court. At the same time, it's gonna need to be really clear in advance about what its process is. Um, and we need to get agreement and buy-in from everybody on that process and then stick to it so that the process of the election can be this point of coming together and supporting the court to move forward rather than another process of rupture, um, which is what is um, you know, certainly a legitimate risk. Um, so it is about the ASP getting its house in order. Alex and I spoke also about internally within the court, um, not only investigations of workplace misconduct, but just workplace culture in generally, um generally has been a challenge for the court. Um, from its first term, we have Fajant Bed Suitors starting to work on it in the second, and it has been ongoing. But what we see in this is that it needs to be led, by example, from the top as well. Um, and then the external piece. At the end of the day, this court limbs or dies on the decisions that states make to fund it, to share information with it, to give it access to sites of investigation, and to execute its warrants. And in this environment of extreme hostility by some states who have a vision of might makes right or who want their officials shielded when they violate international law, it is really going to be on the many, many other states out there who do want a world that is upheld by the rule of law to hold strong in this moment. And that's difficult when you have, in particular, a state with a kind of parent leverage of the US trying to kill the court. But this is where I would make my sort of um ongoing call to regular people out there. One of the ways that um leaders of states that would be inclined to see the court succeed are bolstered, is when they hear from their constituents and get domestic political support to stand up to the US effort to kill the court and to fight for a vision of a court that can actually succeed. Um and so I don't want to have people leave this conversation feeling hopeless. Um, I think we underestimate just how much so many people around the world really care about the survival of this court. Um, and there's a lot of work to be done. Um, but I truly believe that we can do it.

SPEAKER_01

Um, there's a great note to end on. And also just makes me think about um how politics and geopolitics are dynamic, not static. And, you know, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine or full invasion of Ukraine, uh huge bipartisan support inside the U.S. Congress uh for the International Criminal Court, led uh by surprise in some ways by Lindsey Graham of all people, and passing legislation and the like to support the court by massive margins in the House and the Senate. So there I there are ways in which the court serves uh global interests and uh can be recognized as such when there's mobilization, political mobilization, and consciousness about it, I think, too. So just want to thank you both for really an incredibly insightful conversation. Uh appreciate it so much, and I'm so I'm so I'm certain uh that our viewers and listeners do as well. And uh this episode was uh hosted by me, Ryan Goodman. It was produced by Daniel Hajnacki with help from Pooja Shah. Special thanks to both of our guests, uh Professors Rebecca Hamilton and Alex Whiting for joining. You can listen to this episode wherever you get your podcast or watch it on Just Security's YouTube channel. Additional resources for further reading, including the articles that we referenced in our conversation, are linked in today's show notes. Thanks so much for joining us.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you both.