ESQ Legal Practice Magazine JUNE 2014 EDITION | Page 31

CENTRAL AFRICAN
REPUBLIC PRESIDENT
REQUESTS ICC INVESTIGATION

C

entral African
Republic (CAR)
President
Catherine SambaPanza has
requested that the
International Criminal Court
(ICC) [official website]
investigate crimes committed
within ICC jurisdiction since
August 21, 2012. ICC
prosecutor Fatou Bensouda
[official profile] issued a
statement [text] Thursday
describing the context of the
referral to the ICC and
mentioning that all of the
crimes that have been
committed in the CAR have
been documented by her office
and "will not go unpunished."
Bensouda said:
Since 7 February 2014, the
situation in the Central
African Republic has been
subject to a preliminary
examination in order to
ascertain whether the criteria
of the Rome Statute [text] for
opening an investigation have
been met. This examination
will continue and will be
stepped up so that I can make
a decision shortly. The referral
of this situation by the Central
31 I EsQ legal practice

African authorities will enable
the process to be sped up,
where appropriate.
Only five nations have ever
submitted a referral to the
ICC, all of which nations have
been African.
Violence has recently been
ongoing in the Central African
Republic. Bensouda's office
opened a preliminary

investigation [JURIST report]
into the situation in February.
The UN Security Council
approved a peacekeeping
force in April, a month after a
spokesperson for SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-moon strongly
condemned the violence
[JURIST reports]. In March the
UN Security Council
established an International

Commission of Inquiry
[JURIST report] on CAR,
tasked with examining reports
of human rights violations,
compiling information, and
helping identify perpetrators.

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