Queen’s Law professor Darryl Robinson is arguing before the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague this week. The hearing concerns the highly controversial question of whether Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir has immunity from prosecution before the Court for genocide and crimes against humanity.

An internationally respected authority on international criminal law, Robinson will appear as an amicus curiae – “a friend of the court” – to provide independent expert input on the issues before the Court. Robinson, who will speak for an international team of leading legal scholars (Robert Cryer, Margaret deGuzman, Fannie Lafontaine, Valerie Oosterveld, and Carsten Stahn), is addressing the Chamber four times over the week-long hearing. Robinson and his team also submitted a written brief, developed with research assistance from Queen’s Law JD students Rachel Oster and Eric Znotins.

Omar al-Bashir is accused of genocide and crimes against humanity in war-torn Darfur, where as many as 300,000 men, women and children have been killed. Most of the killings were allegedly carried out by armed groups, such as the Janjaweed, in coordination with state forces. Despite being the subject of an international arrest warrant, al-Bashir has travelled to various countries, which have failed to arrest him. The Appeals Chamber of the ICC hearing is considering whether Jordan breached its obligation by declining to detain him when he visited Jordan in March 2017 to attend an Arab League Summit.

A Pre-Trial Chamber ruling in December 2017 found Jordan was in breach of its obligations under the Rome Statute, the 2002 treaty that established the ICC. If any of the court’s member states fails to comply with an arrest warrant, the Court can make a finding of non-compliance and refer the matter to the Assembly of States Parties – which is the ICC’s governing body – or the United Nations Security Council.

“We will argue that the Security Council has indeed removed President al-Bashir’s immunity for these crimes before the Court,” Robinson said before leaving for The Hague. “However, there are contrasting viewpoints with plausible arguments. We’ll suggest ways to bridge some of the differences. The best contribution would be for the Appeals Chamber to clear up the law for the future.”

Robinson has long been involved in international criminal law. As a young Canadian diplomat, he helped to draft the Statute of the ICC. He later served for three years as a legal adviser in the ICC prosecutor’s office. Since joining the Queen’s Law faculty in 2008, Robinson has engaged in writing, strategic litigation, and projects in various regions to promote a fair and compassionate system for prosecution of war crimes. He is a member of a Social Science and Humanities Research Council partnership that has received $2.5 million to strengthen international justice efforts.

By Ken Cuthbertson