During the 20th session of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) to the Rome Statute, the International Nuremberg Principles Academy (Nuremberg Academy) and the Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (Hiil), organised a panel discussion on "Benchmarking in International Criminal Justice: Feasibility or Fiction?".
The event took place online on 7 December 2021, and the organisers welcomed more than 50 participants and experts. The welcoming remarks were delivered by the Ambassador of Germany to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Dr. Cyrill Jean Nunn. Both partners are grateful for the support and hosting by Germany.
The event consisted of two parts. In the first panel, the project partners introduced and explained the project that they, partially in collaboration with the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogota, Colombia, concluded in 2021. The project focused on a feasibility study to assess whether establishing benchmarks for international criminal justice is achievable and what these benchmarks could look like.
The conclusion of the study is positive – creating such benchmarks would be possible and would certainly be needed in the field of international criminal law (ICL) and wider international criminal justice. The second part of the symposium looked at the relevance of this project for the broader question of effectiveness, efficiency, the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) work, the recommendations of the independent expert report of 30 September 2020 (IER). They reflected on the key performance indicators and the wider debate of goal setting and tangible results displayed in the field of international criminal law.
The core task for the second part of the symposium was to analyse further challenges related to benchmarking in international criminal justice and identify ways forward to address these challenges. The experts specifically discussed the need for benchmarking, the scope of measurement, and the practical implementation of the project.?
Consensus was reached among the experts regarding an increasing demand for measuring the impact/result of a given action, based on a more data-driven and result-oriented analysis and that it will become essential to use a data-driven approach to align actions and goals. This is also needed in the justice sector.
Experts highlighted the critical role of the ICC in achieving the goals of international criminal justice, and the need to reflect on the international criminal justice system as a whole, when identifying what might be measurable.
In terms of a practical implementation, the experts stressed the importance of inclusiveness, transparency, objectivity and legitimacy as key guiding principles of any project.
The full project report will be available soon. See here for the programme of the event. You can also watch the event on our YouTube Channel.
