Permanent premises of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the Netherlands. © 2018 Marina Riera/Human Rights Watch
Maduro Atrocities to Receive International Judicial Scrutiny
(Washington, DC) – The decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor to open an investigation in Venezuela offers a pathway to justice for victims of atrocities by Nicolás Maduro’s government. On November 3, 2021, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan announced his decision during a visit to the country.
The situation in Venezuela, an ICC member country, has been under preliminary examination by the Office of the Prosecutor since February 2018. In September 2018, six ICC member countries asked the prosecutor to investigate potential crimes in Venezuela. It was the first time countries had jointly asked the prosecutor to investigate alleged crimes committed on the territory of another ICC member country. This path of state referral allows the prosecutor to act to open an investigation without first seeking approval by ICC judges.
“The ICC’s first investigation in the Americas comes on the back of the extreme repression the Maduro government has inflicted on the Venezuelan people,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “The ICC prosecutor has a mandate to hold those most responsible for the gravest international crimes to account, so this decision should be a powerful wakeup call not only for those who committed abuses or covered them up, but also for military and civilian leaders who knew or should have known what was happening and failed to act.”
In December 2020, the Office of the Prosecutor reported that based on the information available during its preliminary examination there was a reasonable basis to believe that crimes against humanity had been committed in Venezuela. These include, at least since April 2017, the crimes against humanity of “imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty,” “torture,” “rape and/or other forms of sexual violence,” and “persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political grounds” by the civilian authorities, members of the armed forces, and government supporters.
The previous ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, announced in June, at the end of her term, that her office had concluded its preliminary examination. But at the time, the Venezuelan government had petitioned the court’s judges to intervene in the examination, and the prosecutor did not publicly announce the results of the office’s examination. In July, the pretrial chamber dismissed Venezuela’s requests.
In a June 2021 court filing, made public in August, the Office of the Prosecutor concluded that “the authorities are unwilling genuinely to investigate and/or prosecute such cases” because “domestic proceedings have been undertaken or national decisions made for the purpose of shielding persons from criminal responsibility … and/or domestic proceedings have not been conducted independently or impartially, meaning that they have been conducted in a manner which is inconsistent with an intent to bring the person concerned to justice.”
On September 16, 2020, the United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela presented its first report to the UN Human Rights Council, concluding that Venezuelan authorities and colectivos (armed pro-government groups) had committed egregious violations amounting to crimes against humanity. The independent experts leading the mission said they had reasonable grounds to state that “[m]ost of the violations and crimes … were part of a widespread and systematic attack against a civilian population … in furtherance of a state policy.” The experts found that “[H]igh-level authorities had knowledge of and contributed to the commission of these crimes” and that “Commanders and superiors knew or should have known about them, and … did not take measures to prevent or repress them.
