ICC Judge: Sept 11 attack a crime against humanity

Senior Legal Counsel for the International Criminal Court (ICC), Herman von Hebel, told an ICC seminar on Wednesday that the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Centre was a borderline case of a Crime Against Humanity (CAH). Von Hebel, who was responding to a question by Costa Rican Ambassador Carlos Eche Varrian  at a United Nations-sponsored seminar on the ICC, explained that the attack on the “Twin Towers” was not on a military target, and although isolated, it was big and there was a sufficient number of victims...almost to a systematic attack. “It’s a borderline case.”

Eche Varrian’s question was not about the bombing of the Twin Towers, but von Hebel used the WTC incident as an example to illustrate his point about a terrorist attack germane to a CAH. Responding to von Hebel’s suggestion, Deputy Ambassador of the United State of America (USA) Albert Nahas, said: “It was a clear case of terrorism.” The USA is not a signature to the ICC, and Nahas attended the seminar which was held at the Port-of-Spain Hall of Justice, Convocational Hall, defending the US position on the issue. Judge of the ICC, Karl Hudson-Phillips QC, also addressed the seminar, giving an account of the present status of the ICC.

He explained that it was not possible to forecast with any precision when a first trial before the Court will commence. He recalled the precautionary features which precede a trial such as authorisation, investigation and pre-trial hearing. He further noted that from July, 2002 to October, 2003, the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the ICC had received 673 communications, but 80 percent of those communications were outside the jurisdiction of the ICC. He explained that 573 of those  were in the communication register and 100 in general correspondence. Of those contacts, 160 were received in non-working language of the ICC which is French and English. The communications came from 69 countries of which 42 of those states were parties to the ICC. The highest communications came from  Germany, 121; USA, 86; France, 74; UK, 41; Netherlands, 40; Spain, 25 and Canada 22. There were also 40 communications by e-mail and 29 via fax.

He emphasised that these communications are treated in the strictest confidence, acknowledged, and stored digitally. Hudson-Phillips reported that since the selection of the 18 judges, three plenary sessions were held in May, June and November this year, which dealt mainly with the drafting of regulations of the court. The next plenary session is expected to take place from March 6 to 26, 2004, to finalise the regulations of the court, prior to their submission to an assembly of state parties when they will be subjected to negative resolution. Von Hebel explained to the gathering the difficulties they had in drafting the offences which fall under the headlines of Genocide, War Crimes and CAH. He also spoke about their efforts to detail these offences so that judges would not be open to wide interpretation as was the case in the past.