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Joint Declaration on Mixed Chambers and ICC Implementing Legislation

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Joint Declaration on Mixed Chambers and ICC Implementing Legislation

Posted by Enough Team on April 1, 2014

Joint Declaration on Mixed Chambers and ICC Implementing Legislation

Establish Specialized Mixed Chambers and Adopt ICC Implementing Legislation 
During the Current Parliamentary Session

The 146 undersigned Congolese civil society and international human rights organizations 
welcome recent commitments by authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo to ensure 
justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity. They call on the government to press for adoption of the draft law establishing Specialized Mixed Chambers and the draft law 
implementing the statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) during the current 
parliamentary session, which began on March 15, 2014. 
 
Repeated cycles of violence and impunity over the past two decades, particularly in eastern 
Congo, have resulted in the deaths of an estimated five million people from violence, hunger 
and lack of medical care. National armed forces from Congo, Rwanda and Uganda, and 
numerous non-state armed groups have carried out massacres, summary executions, rape, 
torture, forced recruitment of children, and pillaging and burning of homes. 
 
While there has been some progress with national and international trials, the vast majority of the perpetrators of these crimes remain unpunished. The trials that have taken place in 
Congo’s military courts have faced numerous challenges, including with regards to the 
quality of investigations, protection of victims and witnesses, respect of the rights of the 
accused, and ability to prosecute senior level commanders most responsible for the crimes. 
 
The creation of a new mechanism within the Congolese judicial system to prosecute these 
crimes, and adoption of the ICC implementing legislation into Congolese law, could go a 
long way in finally bringing justice to victims and their families who feel forgotten and 
abandoned, despite unimaginable suffering. These decisive and concrete steps to fight 
impunity would also send a strong warning to rebel leaders and military commanders that 
serious crimes will not go unpunished—and hopefully help bring an end to Congo’s history 
of rampant abuse.