On 18 December 2020, the resumed 19th session of the Assembly of States Parties to the ICC Rome Statute commenced at the United Nations Headquarters (UNHQ). 

The fifth plenary meeting started with the election of six (6) members of the Committee on Budget and Finance- , the Assembly’s technical expert body tasked with budgetary and financial review.

The six candidates were elected by acclamation as the number of candidates equalled the number of vacant seats. The members of the Committee elected are:  Mr. Werner DRUML (Austria); Ms. Yukiko HARIMOTO (Japan); Mr. Fawzi GHARAIBEH (Jordan); Ms. Mónica SÁNCHEZ IZQUIERDO (Ecuador); Ms. Margaret Wambui Ngugi SHAVA (Kenya); and Ms. Elena SOPKOVÁ (Slovakia). 

The Assembly proceeded to the Election of the President of the Assembly, the election of two Vice-Presidents and members of the Bureau for the 20th to 22nd session of the ASP (from the end of the resumed session or 28 February 2021, whichever comes first, to 31 December 2023)

The ASP President and Vice-Presidents, as well as the Bureau members (18 States Parties), are each elected for three-year terms. The current President of the ASP is H.E. O-Gon Kwon of the Republic of Korea, who is supported by Vice Presidents H.E. Ambassador Michal Mlynár of Slovakia (based in New York) and H.E. Ambassador Jens-Otto Horslund of Denmark (based in The Hague). 

On 26 November 2020, the Bureau recommended that the Assembly elects Ms. Silvia Fernández de Gurmendi (Argentina) as its President. The Assembly elected Ms Silvia Fernández de Gurmendi by acclamation on 18 December 2020.

The Assembly did not elect the two Vice Presidents, as consultations regarding these positions were ongoing at the time of the vote. 

The Assembly elected the following members of the Bureau: Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Côte d’Ivoire, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Ghana, Kenya, Liechtenstein, Mexico, Norway, Romania, Senegal, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, the State of the Palestine, Uganda and the United Kingdom.  

The ASP then proceeded with the election of new ICC judges. 

Six judges will be elected during this ASP to take office in March 2021, out of the 18 that compose the ICC bench. The election follows the Court’s regular judicial elections process, which replaces a third of the 18 judges every three years. The new judges will serve a nine-year term expected to begin in March 2021.

The outgoing judges are:  Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji (Nigeria) (ICC President); Judge Robert Fremr (Czech Republic) (ICC First Vice President); Judge Howard Morrison (United Kingdom); Judge Olga Herrera-Carbuccia (Dominican Republic); Judge Geoffrey Henderson (Trinidad and Tobago); and Judge Raul Cano Pangalangan (Philippines).

The voting started with 18 candidates, following the withdrawal of 4 candidates shortly before the start of voting. 
At the first round of voting, Judge Joanna Korner (United Kingdom) was elected with 85 votes.   
At the second round of voting, Mr. Gocha Lordkipanidze (Georgia) was elected with 76 votes.

Four (4) seats now remain to be filled. 

Voting will resume on Monday, 21 December 2020, with 12 candidates – folowing the withdrawal of an additional 4 candidates after the first two rounds of voting.  The minimum voting requirements of two candidates from the Latin American and Caribbean Group are maintained until the fourth round of voting. 

The Assembly agreed to defer the election of the ICC Prosecutor to its second resumed session, with the intention that it would convene either in late January or early February 2021, based on the ASP President’s consultation with the UN Secretariat regarding practicalities of holding the session. Consultations will continue among states parties with a view toward building consensus. 

The ICC Prosecutor is elected for a nine-year term by the Assembly of States Parties and cannot be re-elected. Ms. Fatou Bensouda took office on 15 June 2012 as the second ICC Prosecutor, after being elected by consensus during the 10th session of the Assembly of States Parties in December 2011. Her term will run until 15 June 2021.

Throughout the day, States continued virtual informal consultations on a draft resolution regarding the review of the International Criminal Court and the Rome Statute system. Following the negotiations, which included 14 joint meetings of the ASP New York and Hague Working Groups, the resolution was adopted by the Assembly.  

The resolution puts in place a framework to follow up to the review process, including the recommendations of the Independent Expert Review. 

The ASP19 Resumed session will continue on Monday 21 December with the Elections of Judges.

The Coalition, including through its elections team, along with many individual member organizations, has consistently called on states to nominate and elect only the most highly qualified individuals as ICC officials through fair, transparent and merit-based processes. While the Coalition does not endorse or oppose any individual candidates, it strongly opposes reciprocal political agreements (“vote-trading”) in all ICC and ASP elections. 

In a statement issued on 18 December in advance of the start of the elections, the Coalition’s Elections Team is calling on states parties to consider the severe imbalance in gender representation on the court's bench when casting votes in the judicial elections. 

Find out more about our campaign to #ElectTheBest to lead the fight against impunity here and in our ASP19 Backgrounder.

An overview of CICC members’ advocacy documents related to the judicial and electoral processes can be found here.