[INTERVIEW] Korea a 'leader' in cooperating with the ICC, says court's chief

Judge Piotr Hofmanski, president of the International Criminal Court (ICC), speaks in an interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily at Lotte Hotel Seoul in central Seoul on Wednesday. [PARK SANG-MOON]

Judge Piotr Hofmanski, the president of the International Criminal Court (ICC), empathizes with the plight of North Korean defectors forcibly repatriated from China.

However, he says a UN Security Council referral is the only way to bring the matter before the court.

“We do not have jurisdiction over crimes committed on the territory of North Korea as the country has not ratified the Rome Statute,” Hofmanski said in an interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily in central Seoul on Wednesday.

The Rome Statute, adopted by the United Nations in 1998, was the foundation of establishing the ICC.

The Third Committee of the UN on Wednesday passed with consensus a draft resolution condemning “violations of human rights in and by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea [DPRK],” referring to North Korea by its official name.

It marked the 19th consecutive year the committee passed such a resolution, set to be voted on at the UN General Assembly next month.

Since North Korea reopened its borders after the Covid-19 shutdown, hundreds of North Koreans in border regions with China have been forcibly repatriated, according to reports.

The South Korean government confirmed the repatriations but did not verify the numbers.

Defectors who successfully escaped have testified that refugees handed back to North Korean authorities face torture, long prison terms and other harsh forms of punishment.

The delegations of the ICC — The Hague-based international tribunal that investigates and tries individuals charged with serious international crimes — visited Seoul on Tuesday for a high-level regional seminar co-hosted by the Korean government and the ICC.

The high-level ministerial, judicial, and technical representatives discussed attracting other states to join, particularly those countries in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, the least represented region of the ICC.

According to Hofmanski, South Korea is one of the leaders in cooperation with the court.

“If there are states that remain out of the system, it is really difficult to do our job,” he said.

“But Korea is one of the leaders in terms of cooperation with the ICC.”

South Korea has been one of the few APAC countries under the ICC’s jurisdiction since 2003. It is also one of the most significant contributors to the ICC’s budget, being the seventh-largest of all state parties and the second-largest among Asian countries after Japan.

Referring to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, in which the ICC opened an investigation regarding war crimes in the Palestinian territory associated with Israel, Hamas, and other Palestinian groups in March 2021, the court ensures that a thorough and fair investigation into the case will be conducted.

“Palestine ratified the Rome Statute, which means that the ICC has jurisdiction over all crimes committed on the territory of Palestine. We also have the so-called personal jurisdiction, which means we have jurisdiction over crimes committed by the nationals of the state parties regardless of where they are committed,” the judge said.

While the ICC’s jurisdiction is limited, Hofmanski said it takes time for justice to come.

The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s children's rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova in March for the alleged forced deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia.

Although the issuance of the arrest warrant against Putin would not be able to bring the Russian president before the court physically, the ICC President said that could change depending on the political situation. The arrest warrant issued by the ICC does not have a statute of limitation.

“This is a very similar situation to the president of Serbia when he was under an arrest warrant for the crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia,” he said.

“Nobody expected the warrant to be executed, but it happened.”

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia issued an arrest warrant for the former president of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, on charges of genocide and war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo in 1999.

But as Milosevic controlled the levers of power, the Tribunal did not have the power to arrest him physically, though the warrant did prevent him from leaving his country. A change in the political scene, with Milosevic being ousted from power, pushed the Yugoslav government to transfer the war crimes suspect to the Tribunal in 2001. Milosevic died in 2006 in trial detention.

As payback to the arrest warrant, Russia put Hofmanski on its wanted list in September, which the Judge sees as a “political action” from the Russian authorities.

“The attempt to influence our independence has not been successful and will not be successful,” Hofmanski stressed, adding that other forms of pressure may come in the future.

“We feel safe, and we are resistant.”

The ICC has jurisdiction over 124 state parties that have ratified the Roman Statute, including Armenia, which officially joined the international court on Tuesday. Some big countries, including the United States, China and Russia, are not under the court's jurisdiction.

BY CHO JUNG-WOO [cho.jungwoo1@joongang.co.kr]