10.5 C
London
Thursday, March 28, 2024

Ghana committed to the work of the ICC – President

By
Ken Sackey, GNA

Accra, Oct. 15, GNA –
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Tuesday affirmed Ghana’s commitment to
the work of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and to the adoption of the
ICC’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute.

He said despite the
controversy surrounding the work of the Court, Ghana was committed to its
obligations to the ICC, and would soon adopt the implementation legislation that
will give effect to the Rome Statute domestically.

“Ghana remains
committed to its obligations under the Rome Statute and the work of the ICC,”
he said when he addressed the inaugural annual public lecture in International
Criminal Justice at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration
(GIMPA) organised by African Centre of International Criminal Justice (ACICJ)
in Accra.

“We are yet to adopt
the implementation legislation that will give effect to the Rome Statute
domestically. This has been long overdue and it is time that we remedied it. I
want to say that we shall remedy it very soon,” the President said.

President Akufo-Addo
said there was little doubt that the emergence of the ICC “filled an important
and significant void in the global architecture for accountability for evil on
a mass scale”.

He said however that
there was compelling need for the reach of the court to be universal, stating
that the fact that some permanent members of the UN Security Council were not
signatories to the Rome statute weakened the process of global accountability.

A domestic
legislation on the Rome Statute, when enacted, would give Ghana the power to
detect, investigate, prosecute and adjudicate the most serious international
crimes. As such, persons who commit international crimes bordering on genocide,
crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression in Ghana would be prosecuted
in the country’s courts. 

Judge Chile
Eboe-Osuji, the ICC’s President who delivered the inaugural lecture appealed to
President Akufo Addo to convince the governments of Togo and Guinea Bissau to
ratify the Rome Statute.

“I will like to
take advantage of this opportunity to appeal to President Akufo-Addo to help us
encourage countries like Guinea Bissau and Togo to take that step for the sake
of humanity as all other ECOWAS states have done,” he said.

Judge Eboe-Osuji
noted that although the ICC, like any institution, had challenges, the body
remained a veritable edifice of the rule of law.

“But for the
existence of the ICC, many crimes against humanity would go unpunished,” he
said, adding that the court not only served justice, but provided sustainable
economic and human development.

The ICC President
urged the Courts critics to focus on the broader duty of the institution role
as a deterrent to those who infringed on people’s rights and not on its
shortcomings.

GNA

Latest news

Related news