A British QC was elected as the new chief prosecutor of the international criminal court in an election by the 131 member states of the tribunal at the UN in New York. Karim Khan will replace Fatou Bensouda of The Gambia, and as he begins his nine-year term, he faces a difficult task trying to secure more convictions and spread acceptance of the court’s jurisdiction around the world.
The secret vote for the post was the first in the history of the court – and it took place amid some controversy and high politics among member states.
Khan, 50, defeated candidates from Ireland, Spain and Italy to win in a second round of voting with the support of 72 countries – 10 more than the 62 needed.
Khan was called to the English forum in 1992 and promised to renovate the prosecutor’s office to make it more efficient. He is considered a tough and fiercely intelligent advocate, and was appointed in 2018 by UN Secretary-General António Guterres to lead the UN team that investigates international crimes committed by Isis.
The third prosecutor’s first task in the ICC’s short history will be to try to secure more convictions and thereby increase the court’s legitimacy among the many member states that refuse to recognize their jurisdiction – including the United States, Russia and China. The court also faced skepticism in Africa, as the leaders of that continent increasingly became the sole focus of the Hague court.
Karim was not originally on the shortlist for the post and was added in part at the insistence of the Kenyan government. Karim had acted controversially as a defense lawyer for Kenya’s vice president, William Ruto, when he was accused of crimes against humanity after the post-election violence in 2007, which resulted in the deaths of 1,200 people.
The charges were dropped in 2016 by the ICC after what was described as a “worrying incidence of witness interference and intolerable political interference”. An important witness was killed in December 2014. Khan recently wrote an open letter detailing how he did everything possible to prevent intimidation by ensuring that the individual was placed under witness protection and then seeking an investigation.
Earlier this week, it appeared that Khan would be chosen by consensus, the preferred method of appointing the ICC, when last-minute objections came from Spain and Mauritius.
The objections came from Mauritius that focused less on Karim as an individual, but that he was appointed by the British government. Mauritius was furious that UK ministers had, for the second time, said that they did not need to abide by the decisions of the UN international courts in the dispute over their sovereignty in the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean.
Karim will have to decide the next steps in the investigation of war crimes in Afghanistan and in the contentious investigation of the 2014 Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza. The European Parliament this week called for a worldwide ban on arms sales to Saudi Arabia, also called for an investigation of ICC war crimes in the civil war in Yemen.
The administration of then U.S. President Donald Trump hit Bensouda and another senior ICC official last year with sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes during the investigation, which includes alleged U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan.
Israel – which is also not a member of the ICC – has strongly opposed the inquiry into alleged war crimes committed by Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups.
ICC judges, however, ruled last week that the court had jurisdiction over Palestine, paving the way for a full investigation after a five-year preliminary inquiry opened by Bensouda.
Bensouda recently secured high-level convictions against Ugandan child soldiers who became Lord Dominic Ongwen’s Resistance Army commander, and against Congolese warlord Bosco “Terminator” Ntaganda.