Sudan approves bill to join Rome Statute court

The Sudanese cabinet yesterday approved a draft law on the country’s accession to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

“Today, in our weekly Cabinet meeting, we have unanimously passed a bill to join the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,” Prime Minister, Abdalla Hamdok, said on Facebook.

He pointed out that a meeting between the sovereignty council and the cabinet would be held “to pass that bill into law.”

“Justice & accountability are a solid foundation of the new, rule of law-based Sudan we’re striving to build,” Hamdok added.

In February, Sudan and the ICC signed a memorandum of understanding over the trial of Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman – known as “Ali Kushayb” and one of the  Sudanese Janjaweed group leaders who’d been wanted for war crimes allegedly committed in Darfur before he surrendered himself voluntarily to the ICC in June 2020.

The ICC issued arrest warrants in 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2012, consecutively for ousted President Omar Al-Bashir, his Defence Minister, Abdel Rahim Hussein, Interior Minister, Ahmad Muhammad Harun, and Kushayb, on charges of “genocide, crimes against humanity and crimes against humanity in Darfur.”

An armed conflict broke out in 2003 in the Darfur region between government forces and military rebel movements, leaving some 300,000 dead and some 2.5 million others displaced, according to the United Nations.

The Rome Statute was adopted in 1998 in the Italian capital, and entered into force in 2002, announcing the establishment of the first permanent international criminal court to take responsibility for the wars and conflicts that the world witnesses including clear violations of basic rights guaranteed by the international humanitarian law.

READ: ICC confirms first Sudan official to stand trial over war crimes