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

OTP Situations and Cases
20 July 2011 deadline and the types of materials
submitted. It summed up the ethnic and
regional origins, age and sex of the victims,
as well as the crimes and time periods of the
crimes they reported. The report also gave the
victims’ views on what they expected from the
ICC proceedings. The report further outlined
various problems faced by the VPRS regarding
the sources, the number of representations and
their content. The Registry stated that significant
efforts were required to assist victims, and
expressed its willingness to assist the Chamber
in providing such help.
On 15 and 16 October 2011, the Office of the
Prosecutor conducted an official visit to Côte
d’Ivoire and in a statement on 14 October
the Prosecutor stated that his office is ‘closely
monitoring election-related developments’. 1028
He said that he will meet with victims in order
to listen to their views and concerns. The Office
will also meet with members of the opposition
and the Truth, Dialogue and Reconciliation
Commission.
Authorisation to open an investigation
On 3 October 2011, Pre-Trial Chamber III issued
a decision granting the Prosecutor’s request for
authorisation to commence an investigation in Côte
d’Ivoire, making it the seventh Situation before the
ICC. 1029
The Pre-Trial Chamber examined Côte d’Ivoire’s
Declaration of Acceptance, dated 18 April 2003, and
the letters from President Ouattara of December
2010 and May 2011. It concluded that the Court has
jurisdiction over crimes allegedly committed in Côte
d’Ivoire since 19 September 2002. 1030 The Pre-Trial
Chamber took into account the criteria outlined in
Article 53(1)(a) to (c) of the Statute and examined
whether (i) the information available to the Prosecutor
provided a reasonable basis to believe that crimes
within the ICC jurisdiction were committed; (ii) the
case would be admissible under Article 17; and (iii)
the investigation was in the interest of justice. With
respect to the reasonable basis threshold, the Chamber
noted that this is the ‘lowest evidential standard
provided by the Statute’. 1031
Throughout its decision granting the Prosecutor’s
request to open an investigation, the Chamber also
noted multiple instances of ‘other underlying acts not
presented by the Prosecutor’. In essence the Pre-Trial
Chamber, in examining the Prosecutor’s evidence,
found that the information indicated reasonable
grounds to believe that various additional crimes,
including gender-based crimes, had been committed
in addition to those specified in the Prosecutor’s
request. In four instances in its decision, the Pre-
Trial Chamber expanded on the crimes cited by the
Prosecutor, adding torture and other inhumane acts
as a crime against humanity 1032 as well as rape and
sexual violence, 1033 pillage, 1034 and cruel treatment and
torture 1035 as war crimes amounting to an expanded
and corrected version of the crimes brought by the
Prosecutor in his original request. The Chamber thus
seemed to have engaged in the work of a classic
investigative chamber, not previously demonstrated by
other Pre-Trial Chambers. As discussed below, Presiding
Judge Fernández de Gurmendi disagreed with this
course of action by the majority of the Pre-Trial
Chamber, in a partially dissenting opinion.
1028 ‘Statement by ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo on
official visit to Côte d’Ivoire, October 15-16’, Press Release,
Office of the Prosecutor, 14 October 2011, available at
, last visited on 27
October 2011.
1029 ICC-02/11-14.
1030 ICC-02/11-14, para 15.
1031 ICC-02/11-14, para 24.
1032 ICC-02/11-14, paras 83-86.
1033 ICC-02/11-14, paras 144-148.
1034 ICC-02/11-14, paras 162-165.
1035 ICC-02/11-14, paras 166-169.
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