Expediting proceedings at the International Criminal Court2011

In its less than one decade of existence, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has achieved a great deal, opening formal investigations into six situations involving some of the most serious atrocities that have occurred since the birth of the Court in 2002 and commencing cases against a number of the individuals believed to bear the greatest responsibility for those atrocities. However, nearly ten years after coming into being, the ICC has yet to complete a single trial, raising concerns among states parties to the Rome Statute and others regarding the effective functioning of the Court. Hence, while recognizing that the ICC is still a very young institution faced with a variety of novel substantive and procedural challenges, the aim of this report is to identify areas of unnecessary delays in proceedings currently before the Court that are likely to arise again, and to suggest ways in which such delays may be avoided in the future. The structure of the report is as follows: first, we address delays arising at the pre-trial stage of proceedings, referring to proceedings conducted before the Court's pre-trial chambers; second, we address delays arising after a case has been transferred to the trial chamber; finally, we address issues that are relevant both at the pre-trial and trial level.