Stop impunity for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity

We, the undersigned, urge the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to take immediate action on behalf of HM Government on the international crisis of impunity of those who engage in crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide, of those who commit the most profound mass inhumane and torturous acts against innocent civilians.

We have proposed certain changes that in our opinion, if implemented, will go a long way to help capturing and punishing those who engage in the type of atrocities and brutal violations of the universal human rights of innocent citizens like what we have witnessed in Syria and other countries in the 21st century. We believe that by improving the process of capturing those criminals and ensuring that they will have no safety haven to hide from justice they will be timely and correctly punished. We also believe that the following proposals will deter some from performing the most abhorrent acts against humanity.

We urge you to take the two following actions urgently:

1) We urge you, as the Member State representative of the International Criminal Court, to make the following proposal for an amendment to the International Criminal Court:

Any Member State to be able to refer any situation in which one or more crimes were committed to the International Criminal Court, requesting the prosecutor to commence an investigation into the matter without requiring the State Party to provide prima facie supporting documentary evidence of the crime being committed, as long as the alleged crime was committed within a territory for which the Court has jurisdiction. It is for the Court’s prosecution to investigate and to seek evidence of the suspected crimes. This, we believe, will make it easier to initiate Court proceedings against suspected criminals.

2) We urge you to put a proposal for a resolution before the United Nations Security Council to call for a new supranational law to be created, which will see the creation of an enforcement mechanism to effectively capture criminals against whom the International Criminal Court issued a warrant of arrest. No state in the world to be excluded from the new supranational law which would mean that there will be no safe place in the world to hide for criminals warranted by the International Criminal Court.

The proposal will call for:

• The new enforcement mechanism to be activated when any state in the world refuses to cooperate in the surrender and capturing of a criminal against whom the Court issued a warrant of arrest;
• An enforcement service to be created and to work on behalf of the United Nations. The enforcement service to be used ad hoc whenever and wherever requested by the Court;
• The enforcement mechanism to allow the Court to ask any Member State for assistance with enforcement support;
• This Member State enforcement participation mechanism should be one of a voluntary nature for every Member State who wishes to participate in helping the Court in capturing of any persons against whom the Court issued a warrant of arrest;
• A legal obligation of the International Criminal Court to take action to capture any person against whom the Court issued a warrant of arrest, using the enforcement mechanism described above, including when the indicted person is on the territory of a State which refuses to release him/her into custody of the Court.

We, the undersigned, believe that by putting forward these proposals you will reaffirm commitment of the United Kingdom to preserve peace, human rights, and dignity, as well as to end impunity for the most serious crimes. We urge you to put forward the outlined proposals as soon as possible to prevent further suffering of nations affected by gross human rights violations all over the world, like the one we are still witnessing in Syria.