A letter from The Hague and Vienna

From June  until October 2010 I conducted an internship at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. I was fortunate enough to intern at the Immediate Office of the Registrar which is a neutral senior management office of the Court that provides judicial and administrative support to all organs of the Court and carries out its specific responsibilities in the areas of defence, victims and witnesses, outreach and detention. During the internship, I was able to assist in the Court’s action plan following the historical Kampala Conference where the Rome Statute was amended to include a definition of the crime of aggression and the conditions of the Court’s jurisdiction with respect to the crime. In addition, I reviewed and summarized the Court’s newly formed jurisprudence into victims’ participation in the proceedings, as the ICC is the first international court to allow victims to have the possibility to present their views and observations before the Court. Not only did the internship at the ICC provide me with hands on experience in the professional field of international crimes, it also allowed me to gain inside understanding of my area of research.

I was particularly fortunate to have an opportunity to work under the Registrar – Ms. Silvana Arbia, who, in her previous position as the Chief of Prosecutions at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda led the prosecution of Pauline Nyiramasuhuko. During my studies I had focused on female perpetrators and  have analysed Pauline Nyiramasuhuko in depth as she is the only woman charged with genocide, rape as a crime against humanity and various war crimes under international law. I was able to sit down with the Registrar and discuss my previous research and most importantly, to get her personal views on the Nyiramasuhuko case. 

My interest in female perpetrators has brought me to also conduct an internship at the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit within United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna, Austria. Human trafficking is defined as the acquisition of people by improper means such as force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them. Most people are aware that women and girls are overrepresented (79%) as victims of human trafficking, however, few people realize that women are also overrepresented as the traffickers. Female offenders have a more prominent role in human trafficking than in most other forms of crime. Working at UNODC has expanded my point of view into the area of transnational crimes and women’s role. I have been able to assist in inter-agency coordination against trafficking in persons as well as getting hands on experience into the process of publishing resources which aim to strengthen national criminal justice systems as to enable states to deal with this crime. 

Both of these institutions aim to end impunity of the people responsible for the most horrific crimes whether international or transnational. UNODC works hard to help national jurisdictions combat global crimes while the ICC works to prosecute the people who are most responsible for international crimes when states are unable or unwilling. It has been a pleasure, and more importantly, an indispensable hands on learning experience to conduct such internships and to assist, even in the smallest way to helping combat future crimes. 

Ewa Kozakiewicz
ICC student
VU University, Amsterdam
December 2010