A British QC has been selected as the new Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court in an election by the 131 member states of the UN court in New York. Karim Khan will replace Fatou Bensouda from The Gambia, and at the start of his nine-year tenure, he faces a daunting task of getting more convictions and spreading acceptance of the court’s jurisdiction around the world.
The secret ballot for the post was the first in the history of the court – and took place amid some controversy and high politics among member states.
Khan, 50, defeated candidates from Ireland, Spain and Italy and won in a second round of voting with the support of 72 countries – 10 more than the 62 needed.
Khan was called to the English bar in 1992 and has pledged to reform the prosecution service to make it more efficient. Considered a tough, fiercely smart advocate, he was appointed in 2018 by UN Secretary-General António Guterres to lead the UN team investigating international crimes committed by Isis.
The third prosecutor’s first task in the brief history of the ICC will be to try to bring in more convictions and thus increase the legitimacy of the court among the many member states that refuse to recognize its jurisdiction – including the US, Russia and China. The court has faced skepticism in Africa as well, as leaders of that continent have increasingly become the sole focus of the court in The Hague.
Karim was not originally shortlisted for the post and has been added at the behest of the Kenyan government. Karim acted controversially as counsel to Kenyan Vice President William Ruto when he was charged with crimes against humanity following the 2007 post-election violence that killed 1,200 people.
The charges were dropped by the ICC in 2016 after what has been described as “troubling incidence of witness interference and excruciating political interference”. A star witness was murdered in December 2014. Khan recently wrote an open letter outlining how he did everything possible to avoid harassment by ensuring that the person was placed under witness protection and then launched an investigation.
At the beginning of this week, it appeared that Khan would be elected by consensus, the ICC’s preferred method of appointment, as last-minute objections came in from Spain and Mauritius.
The objections came from Mauritius and focused less on Karim as an individual, but that he had been put forward by the British government. Mauritius was outraged that British ministers had said for a second time that they would not have to abide by rulings by UN international courts in the dispute over the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean.
Karim will have to decide on the next steps in the war crimes investigation in Afghanistan and the controversial investigation into the 2014 Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza. The European Parliament this week called for a global ban on arms sales to Saudi Arabia, calling for also for an ICC war crimes investigation into the civil war in Yemen.
The administration of then US President Donald Trump last year hit Bensouda and another senior ICC official with sanctions, including a travel ban and an asset freeze on the investigation, including alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan.
Israel – which is also not a member of the ICC – has vehemently opposed investigations into alleged war crimes by Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups.
However, the ICC judges ruled last week that the court had jurisdiction over Palestine, paving the way for a full investigation after a five-year preliminary investigation opened by Bensouda.
Bensouda has recently won high-profile convictions against Ugandan child soldier who has become commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army, Dominic Ongwen, and Congolese warlord Bosco “Terminator” Ntaganda.