Kenya should stop piling pressure on African states to back amendments to the Rome Statute, civil rights activists gathered at The Hague have said.
The activists said Kenya’s plea on the proposal for amendments to allow for the immunity of sitting presidents from prosecution was in vain.
Some 122 State parties to the Rome Statute meeting in The Hague are expected to deliberate on the proposals.
Ms Gladwell Otieno of the Africa Centre for Open Governance (Africog) said that Kenya was aware of the difficulties in amending articles 134 and 27 of the Statute.
“Majority of African states are against the proposal by Kenya and this means that it will fail,” Ms Otieno said.
Mr George Kegoro, the executive director International Criminal Justice, said that a significant number of African states did not support the possibility of amending the articles.
He said Namibia was the only state that came clearly to support the amendment that no sitting head of state should be prosecuted while in office.
Mr Kegoro, however, added that the discussion was inaccurate because the indictments are against persons who were accused before they became heads of state.
SUPPORT TRIALS VIA VIDEO LINK
Majority of states at the Assembly supported UK’s move to have the court accept Kenya’s trials via video link from Nairobi.
Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Ms Amina Mohammed applauded the move by majority of African and international leaders to support amendments to have trials on video link.
“ICT is the future of our nation and we should not be denied the right to use modern means during the trials,” Ms Mohammed said.
She added that the proceedings on amendments the previous day were historic.
“By supporting our head of state, we are not running away from justice but we are cooperating with the court to find the best way to the entire problem of the trials,” she said.
However, the prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia Mr Serge Brammerts said the move on Rome Statute amendments would not be effective.
He added that his belief in international justice was less certain and the ICC should consider a simpler approach to crimes against humanities.
“It would be better for the ICC to take the approach of creating local tribunals so as to tackle the local cases in the best way,” Mr Brammerts said.
He added that a number of problems and limitations such as global impacts of international indictments may be a blow to respective countries whose heads of state are on trial.