One hundred million Euros sounds a lot, but the budget of the International Criminal Court (ICC), according to some of the court’s proponents, is stretched to the limit.

Cases and investigations are piling up on the prosecutors’ desks.

Elizabeth Evenson, Senior Counsel at the Human Rights Watch (HRW) International Justice Program, says the Court has come under pressure from the 114 state parties who fund the court to keep costs down. “The states are absolutely right to demand that the court uses its resources efficiently.”

“At the same time, the workload of the court has been steadily increasing,” she said.

More work for the same money
This year the ICC’s budget is 107 million Euro. This is 4.77 million Euro more than last year, but the court is a lot busier: The ICC will soon begin investigating violence in Libya following last month’s referral from the UN Security Council; Callixte Mbarushimana, the alleged driving force behind the Hutu genocide in DR Congo, arrived at The Hague in January. His trial is set to start in July; The “Ocampo Six” Kenyans will soon have their initial hearings; Abdallah Banda and Saleh Jerbo, the Darfur rebel leaders, will be tried at the court; Human Rights Watch is drawing attention to crimes against humanity in Ivory Coast;
The list goes on.

While the ceiling is literally cracking in the hallway of the current ICC building, landlord-state the Netherlands wants around 7 million Euro in rent for the year. (The rent-free tenure has just expired. They will not move out until 2015, when the new court building is finished.)

The ICC is conducting three trials, but in addition to that it has six situations under investigation and at least ten preliminary investigations.

“It seems difficult to expect the court to do more work with the money it has now,” Evenson said.

Cost-effective?
The United Kingdom will contribute around 10 million Euro to the ICC this year, making it one of the biggest contributors. The Foreign Office in London is calling on the Court to make tough spending decisions in response to the global economic crisis. “The economic situation faced by states remains very difficult and has placed an obligation on all governments and international institutions to achieve value-for-money for taxpayers’ resources,” he said.

The ICC for its part does not seem to be asking for much more funding. The Office of the Prosecutor says it is happy with what it receives. To pay for the new investigation into crimes in Libya it will dip into its contingency fund of 7 million Euro.

Chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said on Friday it is part of his challenge to be more cost-effective. “They say ‘here is 100 million, do whatever you can with it’, and that’s okay, we have to adjust.”

However, not everyone is happy with how the Office of the Prosecutor is handling its budget. Even though investigations are number one on the Court’s priorities list, and even though it is looking into five new possible investigations, the office is cutting the number of on-ground mission days in half. “This does not match the performance and effectiveness of the prosecutor,” says Brigid Inder, Executive Director of the Women's Initiative for Gender Justice. She accuses the prosecutor’s team of inefficiency, such as in the case of Sudanese rebel leader Abu Garda, who was eventually released by judges due to a lack of evidence.

The Outreach Unit of the Court, responsible for talking to victims and people on the ground most affected by conflicts, is watching its costs. Until recently they had only one person responsible for outreach both in Kenya and Uganda. “We have to be flexible in using our resources. We are all obliged to do more with less,” says Claudia Perdomo, head of the Outreach Unit.

The Court seems to be stretching its budget and personnel thinly. Will the world be getting quality or cheap justice this year?