By making High Risk Countries (more) capable of prosecuting their own citizens for committed atrocities, this might prevent (or at least reduce the risk of) High Risk Countries from withdrawing from the Rome Statute. High Risk Countries will be more prone to remain a signatory to the Rome Statute if the High Risk Countries have the resources and expertise to handle their own matters, i.e. prosecute their own citizens and leaders.

Conversely, High Risk Countries will be more likely to withdraw from the ICC if they cannot prosecute—even if they wanted to—citizens and leaders who have committed atrocities comprised by the Rome Statute and the jurisdiction of the ICC.

Legal expertise and resources from High Resource Countries could be in the form of sending lawyers, judges, prosecutors and/or other relevant staff from the legal profession (legal secretaries, government officials etc.), to High Risk Countries for a longer or shorter period of time in order to help training and educating the before mentioned equivalents in these High Risk Countries.

In combination with the above, all States Parties should also consider providing some financial support to the High Risk Countries earmarked to cover expenses associated with improving the physical framework necessary to prosecute the perpetrators in the High Risk Countries, such as courtrooms, meeting facilities, libraries with legal literature etc.

The overall reasoning behind the above-suggested initiatives is simple:

A high degree of involvement from the international community (especially from countries with extensive legal resources, expertise and experience, i.e. High Resource Countries) in High Risk Countries will in the long run eliminate (or at least significantly reduce) the need of involvement from the international community/High Resource Countries. When the High Risk Countries become (more) capable of handling their own matters, the High Resource Countries can withdraw their lawyers, judges, prosecutors etc., who had been sent to the High Risk Countries. Such withdrawal cannot happen from one day to the other, but must be carefully considered and done over time.

The above-described initiative will contribute to the fundamental, institutional development of the judicial system in the High Risk Countries. It cannot be determined in advance or in general how much assistance a specific country will need or for how long. This must be decided on a case-by-case basis and in close corporation with the country in question.

It must be underscored that the involvement of High Resource Countries can only be successful long-term if such involvement is based on corporation with, acceptance and inclusion by the involved High Risk Countries. Hence, legal expertise and resources provided by High Resource Countries may not be unilaterally imposed on the High Risk Countries without their consent, and may only be done to the extent the High Risk Countries agree. Otherwise, the assistance provided by the High Resource Countries will easily be seen as an act of Western imperialism instead of a genuine offer of help and assistance enabling the High Risk Countries to handle their own matters without interference by the ICC and/or Western countries.

Similarly, the financial support should decrease over time as the fundamental, physical prerequisites for prosecuting atrocities in the High Risk Countries (courtrooms, meeting rooms etc.) have been established and only need to be maintained. It is not the intention that High Resource Countries on a permanent basis should finance the maintenance of other countries’ legal infrastructure.

The above described approach have been used several times in relation to helping countries educating and training police forces in the process of rebuilding the countries after the end of an armed conflict in such countries, such as civil war and/or the international community’s use of military force/intervention. Such initiatives have over time helped establish law and order in countries such as Kosovo, Sudan, Iraq, Bosnia and Afghanistan. In these situations the international community has provided experienced police staff, government officials, developed training programs for police officers etc. All with the purpose of enabling the police forces in said countries to function without assistance or intervention from the international community, and in order to (re)establish law and order in a structural and long-lasting manner.

How successful the initiatives have been in relation to (re)establishing a police force in the above mentioned countries, and how successful legal and financial assistance to High Risk Countries is not easy to measure. The mentioned approach will require a sufficiently long time horizon giving the initiatives in the High Risk Countries time to be established, developed and adopted. It goes without saying that something like this takes time because it is not only a matter of building courtrooms, but about creating a judicial system and a legal culture in the High Risk Countries, making such countries capable of investigating and prosecuting atrocities, which would otherwise have been handled by the ICC.

It is, however, considered more likely than unlikely that providing legal staff, training, experience exchange and financial assistance from the international community to High Risk Countries will have a positive effect on the judicial systems in the High Risk Countries. And this positive effect should then (to some extent) make it less likely that the High Risk Countries withdraw from the ICC. The High Risk Countries are in a better position to prosecute crimes against humanity than before the international community provided the assistance (in the form of sending trained judges, prosecutors, lawyers etc. to the High Risk Countries as described above). Consequently, it becomes less relevant for ICC’s prosecutor to initiate investigations and legal proceedings in said countries because they can do it themselves.

It is of course a very different question whether the High Risk Countries are then actually willing to prosecute its own citizens and leaders when/if their judicial systems have been made capable of doing so. However, as a beginning the international community should at least help to bring the High Risk Countries in a position where they can prosecute crimes covered by the Rome Statute themselves. Other measures must then be considered to force or incentivize the High Risk Countries to actually use the judicial system and prosecute their citizens.