World Day for International Justice

17 July 2010

Today, as the international community marks the adoption of the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court, I take this opportunity to call on States to honour their obligations to genuinely investigate human rights violations that amount to international crimes, to bring the perpetrators to justice, and to provide remedy and reparation to victims.

In the course of the last decades, grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law have been a tragic common denominator in a number of conflicts, with civilians the targets of attacks by State and non-State actors. States bear the primary responsibility to demonstrate that they are willing and able genuinely to carry out investigations and prosecutions regarding genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and gross human rights violations. When they fail to meet these obligations, the international community must step in to ensure that justice is done. We cannot allow impunity to prevail.