The ICC’s investigation of its chief prosecutor has been a failure | Kenneth Roth
Karim Khan is wrong to say he has been exonerated of sexual misconduct. The case must proceed swiftly
The international criminal court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, has been on an exoneration tour, with stops including an interview with Mehdi Hasan and an appearance at the Oxford Union. Accused by a lawyer in his office of repeated sexual misconduct, which he denies, he claims that an internal review of the allegations has vindicated him but the situation is more complex than that.
It has been a year since Khan took a leave of absence while the claims against him were investigated as an internal employment matter. That absence has left the ICC under the control of his deputies, with important decisions to be taken in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and elsewhere. Yet the ICC member states, which have ultimate authority over whether Khan stays or goes, have dawdled, acting as if they had all the time in the world. And the procedure that they relied on to resolve the matter turned out to be a travesty.
Kenneth Roth is a Guardian US columnist, visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs, and former executive director of Human Rights Watch. He is the author of Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments. Before joining Human Rights Watch, he served as a federal prosecutor in New York and Washington
المصدر: The Guardian — Law