After a bumpy legal road and meeting volatile witnesses, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has reached the final chapter in its first trial. Prosecutors, lawyers and victims are preparing their closing arguments for Thursday and Friday. The ICC is slowly but surely gaining momentum.

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The brand new electric curtain opens up slowly. Behind the bulletproof glass emerges a small courtroom. The decorum: wooden desks and black office chairs. The packed public gallery on the other side of the glass awaits the debut. 

The historic courtroom scenario starts to unfold on Monday 20 March 2006, when the once-flamboyant rebel walks into the courtroom. He uncomfortably takes place behind his lawyer and puts on his headphones. At the other side of the courtroom: a team of international prosecutors. On his left: three judges. The French president Claude Jorda asks the accused to introduce himself.

“My name is Thomas Lubanga Dyilo. I was born on the 29th of December, 1960, in Jiba, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I am a politician by profession,” the Congolese man replies. Three days earlier he was flown from Kinshasa to The Hague, on a one-way ticket.

He is the first detainee at the permanent court that brings to justice the worst human rights abusers. Occasionally, Lubanga wears a colourful African dress, but during the many hearings he remains a silent spectator. He observes the trials and errors of the prosecution and hopes to be released

Lubanga – a former psychology graduate - puts aside his books and enters politics in the late 90’s. Not long after the ICC opens its doors in The Hague in 2002, he becomes the leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC). His ruthless militia – within its ranks numerous children - raped and killed civilians in the lawless eastern Congolese region of Iruti.

Dieumerci
ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo drafts an indictment late 2005 when Lubanga was already imprisoned in connection to the killing of 9 UN peacekeepers earlier that year. In March 2006 Kinshasa quickly sends him off on a plane. Just before the trial is due to start is nears collapse. In July 2008, the judges decide to release Lubanga because prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence. On the brink of disaster, Ocampo manages to solve the problem and finally opens his first trial in January 2009:

“Lubanga's armed group recruited, trained and used hundreds of young children to kill, pillage and rape”, he says. “The children still suffer the consequences of Lubanga's crimes. They cannot forget what they suffered.” But when one of these children testifies as the first witness, it almost goes wrong. The shy boy withdraws his statement after his Lubanga keeps staring at him. The boy has no name.

Two weeks later, after the judges have put up a screen in court, the boy returns, now under the pseudonym ‘dieumerci’ – 'thank god' in French. He tells how he was kidnapped by Lubanga's militia.

Scapegoat
The ICC is there to prosecute the biggest perpetrators of mass atrocity. Then “why has the prosecutor targeted Thomas Lubanga for this first trial?", his lawyer Jean-Marie Biju-Duval once asked the court. “There is no lack of suspects of war crimes and crimes against humanity between Kinshasa and Kampala,” he argued. Lubanga’s lawyers contend that their client is a scapegoat for the crimes of others.

Moreover, the defence complains about the role of 123 victims in the trial, a novelty at the ICC. They have a voice during the proceedings, but the lawyers representing them sit next to the prosecutor. The lawyers argue they have to deal with two prosecuting parties. And indeed, the victims' representatives tried to add additional counts to the charge sheet.

The lawyers successfully raised concerns about Lubanga’s fair trial rights. In July last year the judges decide to release Lubanga, again. This time because the prosecutors refused to reveal an intermediary between the prosecutor’s office and witnesses. The trial was saved by the Appeals Chamber, which ruled the judges had erred in law and rebuked Ocampo for flouting court orders. The trial resumed last October.

ICC today
After trials and errors in the first trial, the ICC is gaining momentum. Slowly but surely. Ocampo's team is investigating crimes in six countries and monitoring at least nine other crimes scenes. The court awaits the arrival of Gaddafi and his son and the United Nations may even put Syria on Ocampo’s plate. The courtrooms are fully booked and lawyers are working overtime.

It is getting busy in The Hague. Since 2007 Lubanga welcomed two old rivals – Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui - and Congo’s presidential candidate Jean Pierre Bemba Gombo in prison in Scheveningen. All three are now on trial. Late last year, Callixte Mbarushimana joined the illustrious company. Next month, six Kenyans will come to The Hague, voluntarily. Meanwhile, a lawsuit against two Sudanese rebels from Darfur is in preparation.

The busier the court, the more the critics
"Ocampo only chases Africans and is a puppet in the hands of politicians," critics cry from the sidelines. "Where are the Americans, Chinese and Israelis?" they wonder. The ICC is a global court, but 'rogue states' like Libya and Syria, major powers do not accept its jurisdiction: China, Russia and the United States are not parties to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the court.

Expectations are immense but the court can not always deliver. It leads to a flood of criticism: “the ICC is too slow, too costly and it is ineffective.” While requests for justice are piling up in The Hague, the prosecutor has to reject most of them because its jurisdiction is limited. Therefore the ICC has a full-time job explaining its complex mission. It deals only with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed after July 2002. Moreover, the prosecutor can only act in 116 countries when there are no other options. In other cases, only the UN Security Council can intervene as it did in Sudan and Libya.

To Lubanga it does not make a difference. He is on trial and faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison. He might be looking forward to the unlikey arrival of his old friend, Bosco Ntaganda. But the feared fugitive warlord sometimes feels free enough to play a game of tennis in Goma, while he is also a big name on Ocampo's wanted list.