Securing Improved Cooperation

The ICC Prosecutor has made accountability for sexual violence a central priority, as evidenced by the development of her Office’s thoughtful and comprehensive Policy Paper on Sexual and Gender-based Crimes, issued in June 2014.¹ Increasingly, the Prosecutor seeks collaboration with domestic actors who can collaborate on and support the investigation and prosecution of crimes of sexual and gender-based violence under the Rome Statute. Traditionally, the coordination and cooperation between local actors and the ICC Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) have varied greatly and have, in general, been wrought with challenge. Unsurprisingly, this is often the case among state actors such as the local police, public hospitals, or the government forensic laboratory, where the state is not politically supportive of the OTP’s activities. However, even in cases where the OTP’s efforts enjoy political support, local actors may still be limited in their ability to contribute valuable information about SGBCS due to their own capacity constraints. As important, if not more so, is their potential reluctance to do so. In this brief article, I note the importance of: a. thinking expansively about potential local partners who may have information about SGBCS to share, b. understanding the capacity-related challenges local actors may face in documenting SGBCS generally as well as their lack of awareness of how to engage the OTP, and c. understanding local actors’ reluctance to cooperate with ICC investigations in order to address this hesitation. I offer some practical suggestions to improve local awareness of how to support the OTP’s investigations of SGBCS, as well as thoughts as to how to improve their willingness to do so.