Professor Flavia Lattanzi, ad litem judge at the ICTY (2007-2016) and the ICTR (2003-2006), will deliver OTJR’s keynote seminar this term. The topic will be ‘The Arrest of a Head of State Pursuant to an ICC Warrant’ with a focus on the Al-Bashir case before the ICC.

Prof Lattanzi’s presentation will first deal with the question of immunities of high-ranking state officials as posed by the Commission created in 1919 by the Paris Peace Conference. Then, by referring to some concrete situations, Prof Lattanzi will consider whether opposing the question of immunities to that of national reconciliation and restauration of international peace and security compromises efforts for transitional justice.

In a next step, the presentation will illustrate the facts of the Al-Bashir case with a particular emphasis on the questions posed by Jordan before the ICC appeals bench. These questions will be then assessed in light of the international rules elaborated in a referral by the United Nations Security Council to the ICC in accordance with Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The analysis will draw on the SC referral resolution itself, as well as on the relevant rules of the ICC Statute, which that resolution implicitly refers to.

The last and most sensitive part of the presentation will consider the argument that the ICC is not endowed with coercive powers in situations when the Rome Statute obligates a State to arrest and surrender to the Court a high-ranking state official. The main question, which will be assessed in this regard, is whether such obligation under the ICC Statute would be conflicting with a State’s obligation to recognize, before its domestic jurisdiction, the customary immunities of a foreign Chief of State. Prof Lattanzi will deal with this controversial question by looking at the nature of the ICC jurisdiction as well as domestic jurisdictions when obligated to cooperate with it under the Rome Statute.