Crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes
are the most serious crimes that concern the international community as a whole.
It is commonly understood that states have a responsibility to ensure there is no impunity for these crimes.
This means that the national authorities must conduct thorough investigations and prosecute the perpetrators.
The aim is not only to effectively punish these violations of international law, but also to avoid any recurrence of these heinous atrocities.
Addressing crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes often involves investigations that cross international borders.
Suspects may have found safe haven in a foreign country, witnesses may have fled
and been granted refugee status far away from home, and evidence may be scattered all over the world.
If a state decides to investigate or prosecute one of these crimes, it is almost inevitable that it will have to cooperate with one or more other states.
In practice, however, such inter-state cooperation is not always simple, straightforward or even possible.
For instance, requests from one state to another to extradite suspects, hear witnesses or freeze assets
often get bogged down in delays or may even remain unanswered.
Such difficulties can be detrimental to the investigations and prosecutions carried out by the national authorities
in the requesting state. This problem can be solved by establishing a new multilateral
treaty that provides a modern and uniform framework to facilitate and improve cooperation
between national authorities in investigating and prosecuting the most serious international crimes.
This instrument would among other things designate direct channels of communication
with the competent authorities, clarify which forms of inter-state cooperation are available
and how to request them, and facilitate forms of cooperation involving modern technologies,
such as the hearing of witnesses via videoconferencing or requests for wiretapping suspects.
Argentina, Belgium, Mongolia, the Netherlands, Senegal and Slovenia are asking for your support in
this initiative to establish a new multilateral treaty to fight impunity and ensure that national authorities
can effectively prosecute and investigate international crimes.