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Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 1d

UN establishes “ongoing independent investigative mechanism to
collect, consolidate, preserve and analyse evidence” of international crimes, the most serious violations of international law, and human rights violations in #Afghanistan documents.un.org/doc/undoc/lt...

documents.un.org

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Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 1d

Upsetting and unsettling reporting and reading on the #ICC in the local Dutch daily @nrc.nl: “Abuse, manipulation and suspicion at the top of the International Criminal Court in The Hague“ www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...

Misbruik, manipulatie en achterdocht in de top van het Internationaal Strafhof in Den Haag

VN-onderzoek: Tegen de hoofdaanklager van het Internationaal Strafhof loopt een onderzoek van de Verenigde Naties – een naaste medewerker beschuldigt hem van seksueel misbruik. Dit ging een rol spelen...

www.nrc.nl

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Reposted by Thijs B. Bouwknegt

Lucy Gaynor @lucyjgaynor.bsky.social · 15d

A surprise end to the #Kabuga status conference.

Judge Bonomy announces that this will be the last time Courtroom 1 at the mechanism, #IRMCT, formerly the #ICTY, will be used as a Courtroom.

The last time “this storied and historic courtroom will be used”.

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Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 16d

Overall the problem with the Rome Statute system is that its authors made it so voluntary and optional—you can sign, unsign, and sign again; you can join, you can leave, join again; you can refer, you can defer. You can cooperate, you cannot cooperate. State governments will do all, did all & do all

Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 16d

West Africa & #ICC. Washington pushed some states not to join. Senegal was the first to sign the Rome Statute; Côte d’Ivoire the first to transfer jurisdiction; Mali cooperated in two trials. Guinea sought assistance. Gambia withdrew & rejoined. Now junta’s unsubscribe, allegedly pushed by Moscow

Le Monde in English @english.lemonde.fr · 17d

Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger withdraw from ICC

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Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 16d

West Africa & #ICC. Washington pushed some states not to join. Senegal was the first to sign the Rome Statute; Côte d’Ivoire the first to transfer jurisdiction; Mali cooperated in two trials. Guinea sought assistance. Gambia withdrew & rejoined. Now junta’s unsubscribe, allegedly pushed by Moscow

Le Monde in English @english.lemonde.fr · 17d

Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger withdraw from ICC

The West African countries are facing deadly violence from jihadist groups, but their armies are also accused of crimes against civilians. The International Criminal Court's mission is to prosecute the perpetrators of the most serious crimes, such as war crimes, when countries lack the will or capacity to do so themselves.

www.lemonde.fr

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Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 17d

#ICC prosecution formulates charges against former Philippines President — as well as former mayor of Davao City — Rodrigo Roa #Duterte: three counts of crimes against humanity, alleging his involvement in at least 76 murders as part of his war on drugs www.icc-cpi.int/sites/defaul...

www.icc-cpi.int

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Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 23d

Navanethem Pillay—de rechter die in 1998 als lid van een internationale strafkamer voor het eerst in de geschiedenis genocide vaststelde (ICTR, Akayesu & Kambanda)—leidt de VN-onderzoekscommissie over Gaza. Zij biedt haar juridische analyse met totale helderheid en historische kracht

Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 23d

Navanethem Pillay—member of the first ever international judicial panel to make a judicial finding on genocide (ICTR, 1998, Akayesu & Kambanda) for the crime—heads the UN’s inquiry commission on Gaza. She offers her legal analysis with total clarity and historical force

Opinion | My U.N. Commission’s Finding: Israel Is Committing Genocide

www.nytimes.com

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Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 23d

Navanethem Pillay—member of the first ever international judicial panel to make a judicial finding on genocide (ICTR, 1998, Akayesu & Kambanda) for the crime—heads the UN’s inquiry commission on Gaza. She offers her legal analysis with total clarity and historical force

Opinion | My U.N. Commission’s Finding: Israel Is Committing Genocide

www.nytimes.com

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Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 24d

Findings of Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel: “Legal analysis of the conduct of Israel in Gaza pursuant to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of theCrime of Genocide” www.ohchr.org/sites/defaul...

www.ohchr.org

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Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 24d

Targeted killings in Gaza. The sniper from Munich www.spiegel.de/internationa...

Targeted Killings: Israeli soldier from Munich allegedly shot unarmed men in Gaza

Two snipers in the Israeli army are thought to have committed war crimes in Gaza. Video evidence appears to corroborate those accusations. One of them is a young man from Bavaria.

www.spiegel.de

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Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 24d

After years living quietly in #Florida, Shah of #Iran’s alleged ‘chief torturer’ must face accusations in #USA court www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

After years living quietly in Florida, Shah of Iran’s alleged ‘chief torturer’ must face accusations in court

Parviz Sabeti crafted a low-profile life for his family – but now he faces a $225m lawsuit over atrocities committed in prisons in Tehran and elsewhere

www.theguardian.com

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Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 24d

It took 7,494 days from the UN Security Council’s referral of mass exterminatory violence in #Darfur #Sudan to the #ICC, and the court to finish its 1st trial with a judgement. On 6 October, Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman hears the outcome: guilty or not guilty of crimes against humanity, war crimes

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Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 25d

Today, in The Hague, continues the criminal trial of former #Kosovo President Hashim #Thaci and others. Appearing before the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, Thaci starts their defence against charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

lnkd.in

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Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 28d

Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 29d

1/ Was at the International Criminal Court #ICC for a midday session. Was there to see hearings in the oldest case on its docket. On the menu: old and updated criminal charges against Joseph #Kony. He once headed the terrorising Lord’s Resistance Army (#LRA) in #Uganda. Some thoughts in the thread 🧵

Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 29d

31/ then why don’t we have an International Civil Court, one that hears claims (versus States) by the myriad victims of mass violence, rather than one that prosecutes a select group of people who, like Kony (and many others), might never appear in The Hague? Just a thought. /END

Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 29d

30/ If it works. But what we get is what we see, and what we see is what we get. And it reminds me of old conversations at international justice’s heyday in the mid-2000s: if it truly is all about victims—and perhaps it must be, as they are the primary seekers of justice and truth—

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Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 29d

29/ If this was ending impunity, the core rationale of the ICC, is that what it looks like? These are observations that might seem harsh, and they in no way are meant to discredit the agency and the work lawyers and judges put into making international justice work as it works.

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Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 29d

28/ If this hearing was ever to satisfy anyone’s trouble heart, mind, soul—who was it? If this was meant to discuss evidence, where was it? If this was to trigger reconciliation, where were the victims and where was the perpetrator? Where were the Desmond Tutus? Now we got judges mediating lawyers.

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Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 29d

27/ But then, when we all gazed into the ICC’s fishbowl, there was nothing of substance that gripped these youngsters—some so young that they were not even born when Uganda’s war ended in 2005. At least 2 students fell asleep; another was drawing little stars on a piece of paper.

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Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 29d

26/ Instead, a class of students from Scandinavia came by. All seemed young and bright; all seemed interested. There was much bustle and much enthusiasm. “No speaking, no sleeping,” the security guard told them.

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Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 29d

25/ Yesterday it served not the most direct audience. On the public gallery, the atmosphere was of a different world than in the courtroom, and probably incomparable with Ugandans seeing the proceedings online. In the afternoon, there was not a single “African” in the gallery.

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Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 29d

24/ Maybe it is time for international justice’s “homecoming”. In The Hague today, it all seemed overly performative, with prosecutors speaking legalese and the defence speaking politics. I was about winning the case. Parties were even snappy with each other. Who does that serve?

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Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 29d

23/ (Kony was the perfect villain to pursue, his victims (innocent children) the perfect people to redress) themselves, in Uganda, by Ugandans, with Ugandan witnesses, and before a Ugandan audience. More truth might emerge there, and such truths might resonate better there.

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Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 29d

22/ Even if alive, and even if arrested, they say, it is unclear that a state would send him to the Netherlands for trial. Uganda asked for the ICC’s help more than two decades ago—in a London Hotel. Today they might want to try the man that once put Uganda on the transitional justice map

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Thijs B. Bouwknegt @thijsbouwknegt.bsky.social · 29d

21/ Who is Kony? And who was he? His motives? All 9 prosecutors, 9 victim representatives, and 9 defence lawyers in court are his biographers, his criminal profilers, but none of these 27 people have ever seen or spoken to Kony. The likelihood they ever will is slim. That is what the defence says.

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