ICC states should respect judges' report on prosecutor, says Norway’s deputy foreign minister

Norway’s deputy foreign minister, Andreas Kravik, has urged member states of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to avoid “a perception of politicisation of the process” as they vote on the fate of the court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan.

Speaking exclusively to Middle East Eye ahead of Monday’s deadline for the bureau of the ICC’s Assembly of States Parties (ASP) to vote on Khan’s future, Kravik called on the court’s executive ruling body to “respect the procedures” it had put in place to examine misconduct allegations against the prosecutor.

If the 21-member bureau recommends a finding that Khan is guilty of serious misconduct, the larger 125-member ASP will vote on the case, with a two-thirds majority required to uphold the decision. A second vote would then take place on whether to remove him.

"What we have said is that the ICC needs to look at this case in conformity with the procedures that have been established for examining such allegations of misconduct,” Kravik told MEE on Thursday at the Norwegian foreign ministry in Oslo.

Norway has been a member state of the ICC since the court was established by the Rome Statute in 2002, but it is not represented on the bureau.

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