'We take our international obligations seriously and we will therefore support the International Criminal Court Court in its mandate to bring perpetrators of violence against other human beings to book ....
'As Botswana, we are determined to continue to play our part in ending impunity and bringing perpetrators to justice. Leaders should be held accountable for their actions and this is a position that we will not change.'
-- Dr. Athaliah Molokomme (right), the Attorney General of Botswana, speaking at a conference in her country's capital city of Gaborone. Convened by the German Foreign Office, the conference brought African governmental and intergovernmental officials together with officials of the ICC, the United States, Germany, and nongovernmental organizations. Molokomme was among those who pushed back hard on African Union complaints about the ICC; specifically, its current, Africa-heavy docket. (Prior IntLawGrrls posts on this issue available here.)
Among those agreeing with her at the Gaborone conference
included ICC Deputy Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda (upper left), the former Attorney General of Gambia, whose own critique of the AU position has garnered media attention recently (here and here and here), 
and ICC Judge Sanji Monageng (lower left) of Botswana, who's serving as President Judge of Pre-Trial Chamber I, which last month decided to issue arrest warrants against Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi and 2 others. At the time of her 2009 appointment to the ICC, Monageng was President of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, a leading AU entity. (photo credit)
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