República Democrática del Congo

In April 2004, DRC invited the ICC Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) to investigate alleged Rome Statute crimes in the context of an ongoing armed conflict in its territory. In June 2004, after a brief preliminary examination, the first investigation in ICC’s history opened. The main regional focus of the ICC situation is the Ituri region as well as the North and South Kivu provinces in eastern DRC. The OTP acknowledged that, while alleged crimes were reported to have taken place since the 1990s, the ICC could not look at crimes committed earlier than 1 July 2002, the date of the Court’s establishment and temporal limit of its jurisdiction. Reports from 2002 onward, meanwhile, allege a pattern of rape, torture, forced displacement, and the illegal use of child soldiers. 

Congolese rebel leaders Thomas Lubanga and Germain Katanga became the first suspects ever convicted by the ICC, while a third, Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, was acquitted.

The ICC investigation has not yielded charges against government officials and armed forces. The absence of these cases—or clear and public explanations as to why they are not being pursued—has left too many victims without justice and undermined perceptions of the court’s independence and impartiality according to Human Rights Watch.