Lawyers discuss key developments at eighth annual Seminar of Counsel at ICC
eft to right: Silvana Arbia, Registrar, President Sang-Hyun Song and Didier Preira, Deputy Registrar.
The eighth Seminar of Counsel hosted by the Registry of the International Criminal Court (ICC) was opened yesterday, 17 May, 2010, in The Hague. The annual meeting constitutes the most important interaction forum between the Court and external lawyers. This year, 300 registered participants will discuss best practices and policies related to the work of external counsel to ensure qualified legal representation of suspects and the accused, as well as of victims participating in proceedings before the Court. Among them, there are persons admitted to the ICC List of Counsel maintained by the Registrar, representatives of international legal associations, non-governmental organizations and international ad hoc tribunals.
In his welcoming remarks, the President of the Court, Judge Sang-Hyun Song, stressed the important role external lawyers play in promoting the understanding of the ICC. Highlighting the concept of positive complementarity, which aims at ensuring that national jurisdictions investigate and prosecute crimes under the jurisdiction of the Court, the President said with regard to the members of the legal profession: “It is our hope that not only will they further accurate understandings of the Court locally but that they will also be better able to participate in domestic trials of international crimes.”
In her opening statement the Registrar of the Court, Silvana Arbia, emphasized that the ICC has greatly benefited from the work of counsel to date. “Let me be forthright: for me and my colleagues in the Registry and at the Court, external counsels are, without a question, indispensable actors in the work of the Court,” Ms Arbia said. The ICC List of Counsel, which has been created by the Registrar to provide defendants and victims in proceedings before the Court with a pool of highly qualified counsel, currently includes 335 lawyers from almost 50 countries. In this context, Ms Arbia pointed to the Court’s recent efforts to increase the number of African female lawyers admitted to the list by means of a campaign jointly launched by the ICC and the International Bar Association last week.
The two-day seminar will be followed by three additional days reserved for practical training sessions on procedural and practical issues facing counsel representing defendants or victims before the Court.
For further information, please contact Ms Sonia Robla, Head of the Public Information and Documentation Section at +31 (0)70 515 8089 or (mobile) +31 (0)6 46 44 87 26; or at [email protected]