Diplomatic Immunity

Readers will probably know by now that the ICC Appeals Chamber handed down a decision on February 3 reversing the Pre-Trial Chamber's 2009 decision not to issue a warrant of arrest for Sudanese President Bashir with respect to the charge of genocide in Darfur. The Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) issued an arrest warrant with respect to war crimes and crimes against humanity but held that the Prosecutor had failed to satisfy the standard in Art. 58(1) of the Rome Statute that there were "reasonable grounds" to believe that genocide had been committed.  The PTC held that  "if the existence of a . . . genocidal intent is only one of several reasonable conclusions available on the materials provided by the Prosecution, the Prosecution Application in relation to genocide must be rejected as the evidentiary standard provided for in article 58 of the Statute would not have been met." As Marko commented  here on EJIL:Talk! at the time, the decision by the Pre-Trial Chamber on this issue was highly problematic as it did not in fact apply a reasonable grounds to believe test but seemed to require proof…