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The Victims’ Court? A Study of 622 Victim Participants at the International Criminal Court

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

WHEN THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT (ICC) was created in 1998, its founders hailed it as a “victims’ court,” one that would give survivors of mass atrocity an ininfluential voice in the administration of justice. In addition to being called as witnesses, victims would have the right to be heard by ICC judges at all stages of the proceedings. They could comment, largely through their legal representatives, on the court’s decision to open an investigation, admit or reject a case, narrow or broaden the scope of charges against an accused defendant, make submissions to the judges or question witnesses during trials, or comment on the nature and extent of any reparations, so long as the presentation was done “in a manner which is not prejudicial to or inconsistent with the rights of the accused and a fair and impartial trial.” Surviving victims would even have a special section of the court, the Victims Participation and Reparations Section (VPRS), to facilitate their interactions with the court. These “revolutionary conditions,” the court’s founders said, meant that the ICC could serve “not only a punitive but also a restorative function,” reflecting the “growing international consensus that participation and reparations play an important role in achieving justice for victims.”

In the nearly two decades since the ICC’s establishment, thousands of victims have been registered as “victim participants,” and thousands more have applied to the court for acceptance. ere is now widespread agreement, both inside and outside of the court, however, that the ICC victim participation program needs to be reformed. Court sta and outside observers have argued that current levels of outreach, care, and support are inadequate and incorporation of the views of so many victims is unworkable. Both defense and prosecution teams have also questioned whether victims’ representations, lings, and testimony have sometimes had an adverse effect on the fairness of ICC trials.

But what of the victim participants themselves? What motivated these men and women to become victim participants? Was it to tell their story and to have it acknowledged by the court? Did they wish to see the accused punished? Or was it more important to receive reparations for the harms they suered? What did they think of the process of becoming a victim participant? What were their perceptions of the court and how it operated? How were their interactions with court sta? And did they have security or safety concerns?

To explore these and other questions, the Human Rights Center (HRC) at the University of California,
Berkeley, conducted an interview survey of ICC victim participants, at the request of the VPRS, in four countries where the ICC had initiated investigations and prosecutions of serious international crimes— Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, and Côte d’Ivoire. In consultation with the VPRS, we developed a strategy that would give HRC researchers access to victim participants without compromising either their safety or the work of the court, while maintaining our independence as university-based researchers. It was agreed that HRC would conduct the study independently from the court and that the conclusions and recommendations would be our own.

Our interviews with 622 victim participants and dozens of key informants strongly suggest that the ICC has reached a critical juncture in its victim participation program. It is our view that the court must either invest more resources and think more creatively about how it can meet the pragmatic and psychosocial needs of victim participants in its present form or revamp the program entirely. Despite admirable eorts by ICC sta, both in e Hague and in victims’ home countries, most victim participants, our ndings indicate, have only a rudimentary knowledge of the ICC and its mandate. ey also want more contact with the court, are deeply frustrated by the slow pace of the proceedings, and expect to receive individual reparations. What remains to be seen is if the ICC (and the states that support it) can make the necessary reforms to meet these expectations.

The Study

Between July 2013 and February 2014 researchers at the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, interviewed 622 people who were registered as victim participants or had submitted applications to the ICC for consideration as victim participants and were awaiting responses. In addition, we interviewed 41 ICC sta members, legal representatives, and victims’ advocates to understand the evolution of the victim participation program. Interviews were conducted in e Hague (N=27), Uganda (N=151), Democratic Republic of Congo (N=154), Kenya (N=204), and Côte d’Ivoire (N=127). Interviews were confidential and varied in length from twenty minutes to two hours.

Imperfect information about aected communities and victim applicants did not make random sampling possible, but we recruited victim participants roughly in proportion to their appearance in the victim population by geography, ethnic aliation, ICC case aliation, applicant status, age cohorts, and sex. Interviews were conducted with victims whose injuries fell within the scope of the criminal charges against the defendants (case victims) as well as with victims who were affected directly by the mass violence but not by specific charged offenses (situation victims). Victim-respondents represented a wide spectrum of people, including widows,child soldiers, survivors of sexual violence, and others who had suffered grave harms during the conflict.