Barely  a month after being unanimously elected at a meeting of the legislative body of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Assembly of States Parties (ASP), in New York on Monday, December 12 as the new chief prosecutor of the ICC, Gambian-born Fatou Bom Bensouda has granted her maiden interview to the Daily Observer, an opportunity she used to reaffirm her commitment to the cause of international criminal justice.

Bensouda, the new face of international criminal justice, who is to take over from Argentine-born Luis Moreno Ocampo, in June this year, had in the run-up to the election beaten the last three contestants shortlisted along with her – Andrew Cayley, the British co-prosecutor at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia; Tanzania's chief justice Mohamed Chande Othman; and Canadian war crimes specialist Robert Petit, before a consensus decision was reached on her as the only candidate put to the Assembly of States Parties’ December 12 meeting in which she was duly elected.

Baring her mind on this huge trust reposed on her in the quest of ending impunity during an exclusive interview at her Kanifing South residence Wednesday, Bensouda, a former Justice minister of The Gambia described as “incredible vote of confidence” her unanimous election to the ICC top job by the Assembly of States Parties which comprised of 120 states.

She said: “The election was by consensus and obviously that meant that all of the states parties have agreed that I should occupy the position of chief prosecutor of the ICC for the coming nine years. It is an honour which I accepted with humility and which I think that I have to do my best to ensure that that trust and confidence that has been given to me that I execute my mandate to the best of my ability; and to ensure that I do not disappoint.”

Quizzed on her take of this achievement, Bensouda underscored the importance of the need to be committed to the cause, asserting that she is commited to the cause.  Her words: “I have not always done international criminal justice or international criminal prosecution, but I have my basis as a prosecutor in The Gambia. If you look at my career in The Gambia that is what I have always done, I have done so many things but that has been my main passion of prosecuting. And this has been the drive that has always been with me – pushing me forward – ensuring that there is accountability for crimes, ensuring that the victims of these crimes also receive justice.

So, this continues to drive me and when I left The Gambia and I joined the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, I have to say it was not my dream even from there to become the chief prosecutor of the ICC because when I joined I think the ICC was not fully functional. But it was this drive of contributing what I could to international criminal justice. Even I can reveal to you it was not my intention to stay all these years in Rwanda [then] but this is a field that I have come to discover that once you started you always want to go on; you always want to give it your best and you always want to bring your experience to the table.

This kept me going at ICTR and once the ICC [deputy] post was announced I applied for that post bringing to the table my international experience and my national experience as well as my love for what I was doing and the passion that I have for it. Eventually this is why I was elected as chief prosecutor of the ICC.”

Priorities for the ICC
Bensouda went on to outline some of her priorities for the Hague-based criminal justice institution in the coming years. Chief among these is to put in place an efficient office to ensure effective and efficient prosecution in a manner that is “totally independent and impartial”. Further exlaining her priorities, she disclosed she will be working closely with the African Union given the latter’s current perception of the ICC.  

She told the Daily Observer that the mandate of the ICC chief prosecutor is very clear, as defined in the Rome statute. The legal mandate under the Rome Statute as chief prosecutor, she explained, is for her to investigate and prosecute crimes against humanity , war crimes and genocide where the ICC has jurisdiction [in the State Parties to the Rome Statute] or where the United Nations Security Council refers a situation to them.

She explains: “So the priorities are to ensure that – we have already started to put in place a very efficient office that can deploy as soon as possible to work in these areas; but also to ensure that there is effective and efficient investigations and prosecutions of these crimes in a manner that is totally independent and impartial. I always say that I have been in the office and we have been trying to set our priorities in order. We have come out with strategies are very transparent. By trying to put an efficient office in place, we have also put in place the operational manual which we just concluded.”

As far as the new ICC chief prosecutor is concerned, an efficient office is quite important in ensuring that they have the efficiency that they need in investigating and prosecuting crimes. “So this is an area where I would really like to concentrate and to ensure that our contribution to conducting efficient prosecution in the office is there,” she highlighted.

Selective justice
On her take on the allegations by the African Union that the ICC is bent on “selective justice” by targeting mostly African politicians and leaders, Bensouda dismissed the allegations, stressing that this is not the reality on the ground.  

She explains further: “I think that I have been quite vocal in the past years in explaining why ICC is in Africa in the way that it is in. I have always tried to explain that Africa has been taking leadership in international criminal justice and that this is what it should be recognised for because not only that Africa played a big role in establishing the ICC, but also the first cases of the ICC were at the invitations of the African states.

This has to be cleared – it’s a fact on the ground and I keep repeating it. Three African countries took their own initiatives and requested the ICC to intervene in cases that were happening which they couldn’t do themselves. Then you have the referrals by the UN Security Council also requesting the ICC. You see even after all these attempts to create this perception about the ICC, Africa has still not relented – you see recently, Ivory Coast has requested the ICC to intervene.

As you know Ivory Coast is not a member of the ICC but they made a declaration accepting the jurisdiction of the ICC and requesting the ICC to intervene as to the post-electoral violence. And this is one reason. Even when the ICC did not have jurisdiction in two countries, which were the United Nations Security Council referrals – Sudan and Libya, there were African countries who were sitting at the United Nations Security Council when the vote was being made and they voted agreeing for ICC’s intervention. So what is being said and the realities on the ground are completely different.”

Bensouda posited that in spite of all that, they have been receiving the most cooperation from African states, adding that individual African countries continue to cooperate with the ICC as well as assist the Hague-based institution in its investigations. She described these as the positive aspects.

AU’s endorsement
Commenting on her endorsement by the African Union, which had strongly lobbied for her candidature, Bensouda underscored that such has to be looked at a very positive way, saying it shows that the African Union is still interested in the leadership of the ICC – not that it was an obligatory for an African candidate. She stressed that the AU could have abstained and cared less about who leads the ICC, but noted that the AU did not do that but went ahead to endorse a prosecutor in support of the next prosecutor of the ICC.

“I think all of these I look it in the positive way and not negatively. I look forward to working with the African Union very closely. I think that the relationship between the ICC and the AU is something that we can have a lot of discourse about. We have different mandates but we can only effectively assist this continent by engaging and talking and trying to see what is the best way that we both can execute our mandate without interfering with the other,” she stated.

“Prosecutor of the world”
Responding to the question whether Africans must see her election as chief prosecutor as an opportunity to herald atrocities on the continent, the ICC prosecutor declared that she is not an “African prosecutor” but a ‘prosecutor of the world’, thus vowing to fulfill to the letter her legal mandate.

“I have explained even if you go back to my acceptance speech that I am not a prosecutor for Africa, but I am a prosecutor for the world in the sense that I am a prosecutor for countries that have signed and ratified the statute. My mandate, I keep on saying, is clear. These crimes that fall within the jurisdiction of the ICC are very serious crimes – very serious crimes that really concern the international community so much that we decided to come together and create the ICC. And when we created the ICC, it is to address these crimes.

So I cannot start selecting whether I should prosecute here or prosecute there for other reasons. My only reasons I need to have as the prosecutor of the ICC are these legal reasons. If I have to now think of geographical considerations, political considerations then I am losing my mandate – then I will not be doing the right thing. So I will definitely work within my mandate. So if these crimes do happen in Africa, I hope it doesn’t, but if they continue to happen in Africa and they are of such gravity that we will intervene, we will intervene,” she concluded.

For more on Bensouda’s full interview with the Daily Observer, read the subsequent Bantaba editions coming out in the weeks ahead.