The round table will be held at the Farah Hotel of Rabat from October 1st to 3rd and will gather international experts, Moroccan legal experts and human rights activists.
Morocco has started, with the creation of the Equity and Reconciliation Commission (IER), a process of transitional justice that is original in the region. Created in January 2004, the IER is in charge of bringing a global regulation to the question of the grave violations of Human Rights committed in Morocco since 1956 (enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions) and to « propose recommendations giving propositions of measures aiming (...) at guaranteeing the non repetition of the violations, remedying their effects re-establishing confidence in law primacy" (Dahir n° 1.04.42 of 19 safar 1425 (10 April 2004) approving the Statutes of the Equity and Reconciliation Commission).
In this framework, the ratification of the International Criminal Court Statute appears as a complementary tool for the fight against impunity aiming at preventing and punishing the gravest crimes which might be committed in the future.
Today, 97 States have ratified the Statute of the ICC. Only one State in the region, Jordan, has ratified. In October 2004, Morocco, which signed the Statute on September 8th, 2000 but did not ratify yet, is the target country of the campaign for the universal ratification of the ICC Statute.
The round table will open on October 1st in the FARAH hotel at 5:00pm with the representatives of the organizing associations and in the presence of Mr. Khalid NACIRI, President of the Human Rights of the League of Arab States, Mr. Mohamed BOUZOUBAA, Minister of justice of the Kingdom of Morocco, Mr. Omar AZZIMAN, President of the CCDH and Mr. Sjoerd LEENSTRA, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Netherlands in Morocco (in the name of the Presidency of the European Union). Then a documentary on the story of the creation and the installation of the international criminal Courts, « Le combat des juges », will be broadcast. A discussion will follow on the link between the diverse tools of the fight against impunity with Mohamed AYAT, Legal adviser in Office of the ICC Prosecutor for Rwanda, Professor at the Faculty of Law in Rabat, Driss BENZEKRI, President of the Equity and Reconciliation Commission and Patrick BAUDOUIN, Honorary President of the FIDH.
The journalists are invited to attend the opening session.
Outline of the round table programme
On October 2, the day will be dedicated to the study of ICC law including crimes, the ICC fundamental principles, and victims rights. An inventory of the ratification process and implementation for the ICC Statute will be presented at an international and regional scale but also with the exemple of Jordan’ ratification. The need to implement the Statute of Rome in domestic law and the analysis of the measures to be adopted by the States Parties to the Statute. Finally a statement of the campaign anti-ICC lead by the United States will be presented.
On October 3 the day will be dedicated to the ICC in the Moroccan context and its link with the Equity and Reconciliation Commission. Some Moroccan experts will tackle the challenges for ratification of the ICC Statute by Morocco. Two Egyptian experts will present the new book of Professor Cheriff Bassiouni on the ICC. A panel will deal with the harmonization of the Moroccan law regarding the ICC Statute. The Sunday will finish with two workshops to elaborate strategies respectively on the ratification and the implementation of the ICC Statute in Morocco.
Concerning the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the campaign for the universal ratification :
The ICC is the first standing international criminal jurisdiction which has jurisdiction to judge individuals charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed on the territory or by nationals from States who ratified the Statute of the Court. The ICC was implemented on July 1st, 2002, its jurisdiction is not retroactive and is complementary with the domestic courts. It has jurisdiction when domestic courts do not want or cannot act.
The FIDH launched a campaign for the ratification and the implementation of the International Criminal Court statute in North Africa and Middle East countries. Above all, this programme is willing to support and reinforce the civil society in their efforts for promoting the ICC in regions where very few States ratified the Statute. The round table in Rabat is the third to be organized, after those in Sana’a (Yemen) and Manama (Bahrain). See the FIDH website http://www.fidh.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=292.
This campaign is also part of the campaign for the universal ratification of the ICC coordinated by Amnesty International and the NGO Coalition for the ICC (CICC) gathering more than 2000 NGOs worldwide. For more information on the actions led for the ratification of the ICC by Morocco see the website of the CICC http://iccnow.org/gettinginvolved/actioncalendar.html and of Amnesty International http://web.amnesty.org/web/web.nsf/pages/icc-011004-action-fra.
1- See the report on the regional seminary organised in partnership with the AMDH, the OMDH and the FVJ, with the scientific support of the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) from March 25 and 27 2004 in Rabat :« Les Commissions de vérité et de réconciliation : l’expérience marocaine »,