I am very pleased to participate, once again with our Danish counterparts and in particular the Danish Minister of Development Cooperation, H.E. Christian Friis Bach in this side event on, “Supporting Complementarity at the National Level: An Integrated Approach to Rule of Law.”
Denmark and South Africa have enjoyed strong cooperation on the important topic of complementarity and the strengthening of national jurisdictions in the fight against impunity. This is reflective of the strength of our bilateral relationship, a relationship based on foundations of principle and cemented by a history of solidarity.
We also thank the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for the very close working relationship we have enjoyed with them.
I am pleased to see such a wide attendance and I thank you all for your interest.
Minister Bach, ladies and gentleman,
Today is the 16th of December. It is a special day for South Africans. It is a day that historically symbolised the deep divisions and conflict that characterised our country's painful past.
For some, it was commemorated as, "The Day of the Vow" - representing the defeat, supposedly with divine intervention, of the Zulus by the Afrikaners at the Battle of Blood River in 1838, during the wars of conquest and dispossession that were the hallmark of colonialism.
For others it was commemorated as the founding of Umkhonto we Sizwe (the Spear of the Nation) in 1961, representing the resort to armed struggle after all efforts at peaceful dialogue and negotiation had been met with violence and repression by the apartheid regime.
After the defeat of apartheid, in which Denmark played a leading role, we mark this day as The Day of Reconciliation, a day on which, as a nation, we focus on national unity and reconciliation.
It is significant then that, on this Day of Reconciliation, we are discussing “positive complementarity” which, if properly executed, can make an enormous and lasting contributing to ending impunity, to reconciliation and sustainable peace.
Chairperson, may now with your permission and on a lighter note, turn momentarily to a topic that is slightly less positive and less symbolic of reconciliation: the current election of judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
I am sure we can all agree that, if time was a carbon based resource, the current election of ICC judges would leave an enormous footprint and its emissions would, in all probability, violate some of the agreements reached in Durban recently. This is something we will no doubt have the opportunity to discuss at an appropriate time, so to speak.
However, even this cloud has had its silver lining because the long intervals during rounds of voting have given me the chance to read a very thought provoking book in the United Nations Intellectual History Project series by Richard Jolly, Louis Emmerij and Thomas G. Weiss titled, "UN Ideas that changed the World."
The authors make the point that, and I quote, "The UN should recognise that ideas have been one of its most important contributions and take steps to ensure that this side of its work is strengthened for the future."
The authors compile what they refer to as a "balance sheet" of ideas that have been "successful" and those that have "failed." They conclude that the balance sheet shows a small surplus.
In compiling this "balance sheet" they argue that, and I quote again:
"An idea succeeds if it becomes generally accepted (often after a time lag) by elite governmental circles as well as civil society. The existence of financial and institutional commitments also suggests that an idea has entered the mainstream and has policy traction. We also consider an idea successful if many argue for its centrality even if it has not yet received widespread acceptance by political decision makers.
It often takes time for visionary ideas to sink in. Conversely, an idea fails when it remains marginal or simply receives no funding or has virtually no institutional manifestation. Again the cutting edge of an intellectual product may be dulled by lack of receptivity, however accurate and morally compelling the idea may be."
Future historians of UN intellectual history will judge whether "positive complementarity" will find its place in the "successful" or the "failed" column of the balance sheet of ideas.
However, I am sure that we can agree that since the Kampala Review Conference, some significant progress has been made towards qualifying "positive complementarity" as a successful idea by the standards set out above.
During that meeting we encouraged, “States Parties and other stakeholders, including international organisations and civil society to further explore ways in which to enhance the capacity of national jurisdictions to investigate and prosecute serious crimes.”
This is precisely what last year and this year's Greentree fora have contributed to.
I congratulate and thank our partners, Denmark, UNDP and the ICTJ for their commitment and cooperation in the organisation of these events.
Greentree II was indeed a significant achievement. It brought together, for the second time, international criminal justice actors and development cooperation actors in an effort to explore how to improve the functioning of the cornerstone of the Rome Statute system, i.e. complementarity.
The aim of Greentree II was to move beyond affirmations of how important complementarity is and to focus on how practically to implement the concept of positive complementarity - how to consolidate our actions to strengthen domestic systems to investigate and prosecute Rome Statute crimes.
When tackling an issue as complex as building capacity for serious crimes in national jurisdictions, which have often emerged from drawn out conflicts, we need to reach out across divides, both regional as well as sectorial. This is a matter that concerns both development as well as criminal justice actors.
We welcome engagement on complementarity by UN agencies as well as the participation of the World Bank at the meeting.
Minister Bach, you mentioned that one of the fundamental findings of the World Bank report was the link between development and the fight against impunity.
This is an important message for countries which are emerging from prolonged conflict and cycles of violence and indeed, we are moving toward unifying our efforts to increase capacity in an effort to end the cycles of violence.
We hope to see this collaboration between development actors and criminal justice actors grow even further and that complementarity efforts will be entrenched in our international, regional and domestic structures. It is also our hope that we start to work together on practical implementation.
The preamble to the Rome Statute states that, “all peoples are united by common bonds and that this delicate mosaic may be shattered at any time”, making the fight against impunity our global concern.
On this Day of Reconciliation, we as South Africa are reminded of the importance of development, justice and reconciliation for lasting and sustainable peace.
Our collective efforts, the UN, the World Bank, and interested countries must continue on this path toward patching together this mosaic of peace, stability and justice - piece by piece.
I thank you and hand over to David Tolbert, to hear more about the outcomes of Greentree II and the way forward.
Opening remarks of HE Mr Andries Nel, MP, Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development of the Republic of South Africa at the Complementarity Side Event: “Supporting Complementarity at the National Level: An Integrated Approach to Rule of Law
