ICC Dismisses Al Hassan Appeal of Admissibility Ruling [1]
On February 19, 2020, the International Criminal Court (ICC) dismissed the appeal of Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz against the Court's September 27, 2019, ruling [3] establishing the Court's jurisdiction over allegations that Al Hassan committed crimes against humanity in Timbuktu, Mali, in 2012 and 2013. According to a press release [4] issued by the ICC, the Court concluded that the Pre-Trial Chamber rightly concluded that the "sufficient gravity" requirement in article 17(1)(d) of the ICC Rome statute had been met. In discussing the detail of the gravity requirement, the Court held that a determination of whether it has been met must be made on a case-by-case basis and that, though relevant, the number of victims, on its own, is not dispositive. The Court must also consider a number of factors, including: (1) the nature and extent of the alleged crimes; (2) the impact of the crimes on the victims and the population as a whole; (3) the extent to which discrimination on gender and/or religious grounds motivated the alleged crimes; and (4) whether some victims were particularly vulnerable. A summary of the decision is available here [5]. The trial is scheduled to open on July 14, 2020.