Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Kirsch, it's a great pleasure for me to see you appear before this committee today. Since little time has been allotted for our questions, I would especially like to get answers from you. I'll immediately go to the heart of the matter.
Before being appointed judge and president of the Court, you wrote that the main purpose of the Court was to replace a culture of impunity regarding various serious crimes with a culture of accountability.
What are the Court's immediate priorities for putting an end to the principle of impunity?
To date, 139 States have signed the Rome Statute. Russia signed it, and the United States, which had signed it in 2000, withdrew in 2002. Since then, they have been trying to deter certain nations, to invite them to withdraw from the Rome Statute. They are signing bilateral immunity agreements under which the signatories undertake to ensure that no American on their soil, including former government officials or military personnel, will be handed over to the Court if proceedings are brought.
More than 90 countries have signed these bilateral agreements. Doesn't the fact that a number of countries have signed both the Rome Statute and the bilateral immunity agreements seem incoherent, even a dichotomy?