The exercise of domestic universal jurisdiction and the New African Union Protocol on Amendments to the Protocol on the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights

The topic which I have been asked to discuss concerns the new African Union Protocol on Amendments to the Protocol on the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights, which instead of that mouth full, I will instead simply refer to as "the Protocol". This Protocol was adopted on 27 June 2014 at the 23rd Annual Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union held at Malabo in Equatorial Guinea and is now open for signature to any AU member State. The Protocol expands the jurisdiction of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights, which I will refer to as "the African Court" (which is itself a merger of the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights and the African Court of Justice) so as to encompass international and transnational crimes. In effect, it creates a regional African court for international crimes. This move was triggered by negative perceptions in Africa concerning the International Criminal Court and the exercise of its jurisdiction over international crimes on the African continent" that is unfairly targeting Africans. My role today is not to discuss such perceptions in any depth, but I will say one thing about the issue. Something that is not often discussed or brought up; but it was briefly alluded to yesterday by Justice Richard Goldstone. And it is this: where was such sentiment during the ICC proceedings against the likes of Lubanga, Katanga, Mbarushimana, Ngudjolo, Kony, or Gbagbo? All of these persons were undoubtedly Africans and yet we did not hear loud denunciations of those proceedings as "unfairly targeting Africans". The present groundswell of anti-ICC sentiment began with the proceedings against President Omar al-Bashir of the Sudan and then in the Kenya cases when two of the accused became the President and the Deputy President of Kenya.