As his three–year term of office draws to a close on 12 December 2011, the President of the Assembly of States Parties (“the Assembly”), Ambassador Christian Wenaweser, visited The Hague from 19 to 21 October. Accompanied by the Vice-President of the Assembly and Chair of The Hague Working Group, Ambassador Jorge Lomónaco, and the Chair of the Study Group on Governance, Ambassador Pieter de Savornin-Lohman, President Wenaweser held an informal meeting with 15 of the judges of the Court, to discuss issues of common concern and in particular the work undertaken by the Study Group. He also met with the senior Court officials and members of the diplomatic community, held an open-ended question and answer meeting with Court staff organized by the Staff Council, gave a lecture on the role of the President of the Assembly at the T.M.C. Asser Instituut; and also addressed The Hague based ICC Group of Friends, where he discussed the key challenges for the Assembly at its tenth session and beyond.
Furthermore, he attended a dialogue on the Institutional review of the governance framework of the Assembly, organized by the Embassy of the United Kingdom. The purpose of the dialogue was to allow States Parties to reflect on the institutional infrastructure of the Rome Statute system, in particular their role in governance and management. The sessions of the dialogue, held under Chatham House rules, focused on the format of the Assembly, The Hague Working Group of the Bureau and the Committee on Budget and Finance.
At a press conference, the President gave a briefing on the process leading up to the report of the Search Committee for the position of Prosecutor, which would be released on 25 October and would contain a short-list of individuals submitted for consideration by the Bureau and its Assembly. In this connection he recalled that in the next phase States Parties would seek agreement on a consensus candidate who would be elected by the Assembly in December and assume the post on 16 June 2012. The President also referred to the forthcoming election of six new judges, the discussions concerning the budget for 2012 and the demarche he had undertaken regarding the October visit of an indictee to the territory of a State Party which was under an obligation to execute the respective arrest warrant.
As regards the Libya situation in general, he indicated his understanding that the Court would continue to carry out its mandate as set out in United Nations Security Council resolution 1970 (2011), the expectation being that the Libyan authorities fully cooperate with the ICC in accordance with that resolution.
resident Wenaweser also stated that from a rule of law perspective he would have preferred that indictees be captured and put on trial. In relation to the outstanding arrest warrants for Mr. Saif Al Islam Gaddafi and Mr. Abdullah Al-Senussi, the President expressed his expectation that the Libyan authorities would proceed in accordance with their stated aim of respecting the rule of law so that the indictees could be held fully accountable for their actions through the proper investigations and trials.
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