Gender Report Card on the International Criminal ... - YWCA Canada

States Parties/ASP Budget for the ICC
114
will be conducted consecutively instead of
simultaneously, thus reducing the costs related to
two or more Court teams operating at the same
time. However, in its recommendations the CBF
stressed that the need for parallel trials could not
be ruled out.
The CBF’s report underscores the critical
importance of the Court adequately explaining
and justifying its funding needs in its proposed
budget. Budget increase requests not properly
substantiated were not recommended for
approval by the CBF. In reviewing the Court’s
proposed 2012 budget, the CBF expressed concern
about managing cost drivers and included in the
report a section on strategic considerations for
their management. Further, in light of the ASP
request of December 2010 that the Court draw up
a ‘zero growth’ budget, 411 the CBF also expressed
concern about the Court having to introduce large
reductions in its activities and potentially cease
certain programme activities that were previously
mandated by the ASP without proper strategic
guidance from the ASP on these matters. The CBF
noted that the Court is now arriving at a point
when the expectations on the type and level of
activity are diverging from the level of available
resources. 412
Despite these concerns, the CBF recommended a
number of cuts to the proposed budgets of the
Major Programmes of the Court that could have
an impact on the Court’s activities. For example,
it recommended cuts to travel budgets of each
Major Programme from the 2012 proposed
programme budget, 413 which could have an
411 The ASP requested the Court, in addition to the regular
budget, to draw up budget options for 2012 which cost
the full range of core Court activities and other important
activities that could be achieved within the same budget
allocation as 2011, hence the term ‘zero-growth budget’.
412 ICC-ASP/10/15, Advance version, para 29.
413 The CBF recommended the following cuts: 8.2% for Major
Programme I (the Judiciary); 7% for Major Programme II
(Office of the Prosecutor); 10% for Major Programmes III
(Registry), IV (Secretariat of the ASP), VI (Secretariat of the
TFV) and VII-1. Major Programme VII-5’s travel budget
remains at the level of 2011 (IOM). ICC-ASP/10/15, Advance
version, paras 11-25.
impact on both outreach and investigations. It
also recommended cuts to the budget reserved
for GTA positions 414 and for consultants in four
Major Programmes. In addition, the CBF called
for a review of the legal aid system 415 and
guidance from the Assembly for a reparations
strategy. 416
In its recommendations to the ASP in December
2010 following its fifteenth session, the
CBF recommended freezing the number of
permanent posts at the 2010 level until a
report justifying all posts has been drafted and
reviewed. 417 As a result, in the 2012 budget, the
Court has increasingly requested GTA positions
instead of permanent positions. In some
instances, GTA positions have been indicated
instead of permanent appointments for
positions that have been mandated by the Rome
Statute and its subsidiary bodies. For example,
in its proposed budget, the VWU restricts the
position of a trauma expert within the VWU to
a GTA rather than a permanent appointment. 418
However, under Article 43(6), the Registrar
is required to appoint staff with expertise in
trauma, including trauma related to crimes of
sexual violence.
The Court reported that in 2011 it notified
the CBF of the need to access the Contingency
Fund to cover the cost of transferring detained
witnesses from the DRC to the Netherlands, legal
aid costs, the cost of the new Situation in Libya,
the cost of the Kenya Situation and costs arising
from trial activities during the second half of the
year. 419 In its report, the CBF recalled its position
that the Court must ‘exercise utmost caution
and restraint when preparing its supplementary
budgets for accessing the Fund’. 420 The CBF
reiterated that the Contingency Fund ‘should
414 General Temporary Assistance positions.
415 ICC-ASP/10/15, Advance version, para 30.
416 ICC-ASP/10/15, Advance version, para 36.
417 ICC-ASP/9/15, para 81.
418 ICC-ASP/10/10, paras 399-401.
419 ICC-ASP/10/15, Advance version, para 66.
420 ICC-ASP/10/15, Advance version, para 68.