September 20, 2021

A FORMER UN Under Secretary-General and Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, and Mohamed Chande Othman, one-time Chief Justice of Tanzania, are among 17 experts appointed by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, to serve as Special Advisers.

The ICC said that the appointments had brought onboard “rich expertise and experiences from different legal systems and specialisations”.

Khan said he was delighted to welcome “such an outstanding group of experts and I am grateful for their willingness to serve as my Special Advisers”.

He continued: “I have no doubt that with their enormous experience and hugely impressive credentials, they will significantly contribute to the work of the Office and the cause of international criminal justice.

“I very much look forward to working with and learning from them.”

The Special Advisers, who will serve pro bono, are drawn from different regions of the world with cultural, linguistic and gender diversity.

They are part of Khan’s plan to build on what has been accomplished to date and strengthen the capabilities of the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) to effectively and efficiently undertake its mandate under the Rome Statute.

The Special Advisers will focus on portfolios including the Crime of Aggression; the Darfur, Sudan Situation; Gender Persecution; Genocide; International Criminal Law Discourse; Islamic Law; Knowledge Transfer; Slavery Crimes and Public International Law.

Dieng, Othman and another will serve as Special Advisers without portfolio.

The Senegalese lawyer held the position on the Prevention of Genocide from 2012 to 2020, having earlier served as Registrar of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda from 2001 to 2008.

Before joining the UN, Dieng, who was once Registrar at the Supreme Court in Senegal,

served for 10 years as the Secretary General of the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists.

While in that position, he was appointed as the UN Independent Expert for Haiti.

Dieng was the driving force behind the establishment of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and also produced the draft of the African Convention to fight Corruption.

Othman is currently an Eminent Person appointed in 2017 by the UN Secretary-General to review the conditions and circumstance resulting in the plane crash in Congo in 1961 that led to the death of Dag Hammarskjold, the second UN Secretary-General, and members of the party accompanying him.

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