At day two of #ASP19, States met in a closed session of the Working Group on the Budget. States are slated to approve the Court’s budget for 2021 on Wednesday following the introduction at today’s plenary session of a draft resolution. 

At the end of the day, discussions continued among states parties on a draft resolution regarding the review of the ICC and the Rome Statute system. Negotiations of key resolutions and other important issues often take many meetings over an extended period of time, but this process has been drawn out further due to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the inability to finalize negotiations in person. 

The day concluded with updates from the coordinators and facilitators of various working groups before draft resolutions were introduced to the plenary. The following resolutions were presented: draft Omnibus resolution, draft resolution on Budget, draft resolution on Cooperation, draft resolution on the remuneration of judges of the ICC and draft resolution on the procedure for adoption of decisions by the Assembly during the nineteenth session of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute owing to the coronavirus disease pandemic.    

In addition to the formal schedule of the day, the CICC hosted a closed meeting for its members with ASP President Judge O-Gon Kwon and ASP Vice President Amb. Michal Mlynar to discuss the ongoing process to elect the next ICC Prosecutor. 

The ICC Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) also hosted an event to launch the the Prosecutor’s 2020 annual Report on Preliminary Examination Activities. This is the tenth annual Report on Preliminary Examination Activities published by the OTP, and the last one presented by ICC Prosecutor Bensouda as her term ends in 2021. 

The report details the preliminary examination activities carried out by the OTP in the past year, in relation to ten situations under preliminary examination. Four preliminary examinations were completed during the course of the past year: with respect to the situations in Palestine (announced earlier this year), Iraq/UK, Ukraine, and Nigeria (announced last week).

The OTP also commenced two new preliminary examinations following State Party referrals received from the Government of Venezuela and the Government of Bolivia in 2020.

See the OTP Press release and full Report here.