The first meeting of the Victims Trust Fund, an unprecedented initiative by the International Criminal Court (ICC), is due to take place on 20 to 22 April at The Hague. Its aim is to establish a basic modus operandi for the Fund and settle a number of key questions. It is the first time in the history of international courts that a specific mechanism is being set up to compensate victims.
The ICC hopes to learn lessons from the ad hoc tribunals for Rwanda and former Yugoslavia and the Special Court in Sierra Leone, which have often been accused of doing nothing to compensate its victims. According to its statutes, the ICC can only convict physical persons. The possibility that states or moral persons might bear financial responsibility was ruled out early on. The judges themselves will decide on the scope of the prejudice suffered by the victim and the amount of compensation to be paid. Aside from financial indemnities, this can also take the form of rehabilitation or restitution. If there are a large number of victims, the Fund can grant collective compensation such as the reconstruction of a village. Compensation may be paid directly by the person convicted or, in the event of insolvency, via the Fund, at the discretion of the judges. Created under Article 79 of the statutes, the Fund is authorised to receive penalties and goods confiscated from accused persons, as well as voluntary donations from states, individuals, foundations and companies.

«Nothing is set in stone», says ICC registrar

In practice though, «nothing is set in stone» says the ICC registrar, Bruno Cathala. On its official inauguration on 22 April, the Fund will only have 4000 USD in its current account. Moreover, since they were elected in September 2003, the five members of the board - Queen Rania al-Abdullah of Jordania, the South African Archbishop Desmund Tutu, former Prime Minister of Poland Tadeusz Mazowiecki, ex-President of Costa Rica Oscar Arias Sanchez and the former French Health Minister Simone Weil - have never met up. «We do not even know each other,» commented one of them.

The board will have much to discuss. The registrar has supplied an agenda, and the first task will be to elect a president and secretariat. Then it must decide if the Fund will accept donations earmarked for specific victims. The registrar is said to be in favour of this, as long as the board fixes a ceiling for donations. Another talking point will be how to set up a mechanism to monitor where large donations come from and where they go. «The board must be able to accept or refuse them if they do not correspond with the spirit of the ICC,» says Cathala. Finally the five will also try and resolve the question of receiving «other funds» from voluntary donors. Many people, including the registrar, would like these to be subject to judicial decisions in order to keep check on how they are spent. But others, NGOs in particular, argue that the Fund should be free to manage its donations autonomously.