ICC urges Guinea-Bissau membership

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

ICC urges Guinea-Bissau membership

5:26 CAT | 20 Apr 2022

Photo: Twitter / @IntlCrimCourt

The president of the International Criminal Court said Tuesday that he had urged Guinea-Bissau to become a member as proof of the unstable West African nation’s commitment to peace.

ICC President Piotr Hofmanski told reporters during a visit that he had come to request it to sign the Rome Statute, the court’s founding treaty.

Hofmanski who was accompanied by Matias Hellman, ICC External Relations Advisor, told the reporters, “We now have 123 member states of the International Criminal Court, including almost all members of ECOWAS, except Togo and Guinea-Bissau, all the others are members”.

“According to our conviction, joining the International Criminal Court system shows a country’s commitment to the rule of law, to peace and security,” he said, in the capital Bissau.

#BuildingSupport: #ICC President Judge Piotr Hofmański met with President of Guinea-Bissau Umaro Sissoco Embaló @USEmbalo in Bissau to discuss ratification of the #RomeStatute pic.twitter.com/jl0Bfc9vxE

— Int’l Criminal Court (@IntlCrimCourt) April 20, 2022

Guinea-Bissau’s President Umaro Sissoco Embalo promised to consider the request, according to Hofmanski.

The former Portuguese colony of around two million people is notoriously unstable and has suffered four military coups since 1974, its most recent in 2012.

A failed coup attempt in February left 11 people dead.