World Day for International Justice
World Day for International Justice or International Justice Day is celebrated on July 17th every year to support justice and promote victim’s rights. This day recognizes the emerging system of international criminal justice.
The day marks the anniversary of the adoption of the Rome Statute on July 17, 1998, the treaty that created the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC began its work in The Hague, Netherlands in 2002. On International Justice Day, Coalition for the ICC gathered voices of its members to help remind everyone that it’s our responsibility to ensure the effective delivery of justice and redress for victims of the gravest crimes.
World Day for International Justice recognizes the nascent and strengthening system of international justice that has emerged since the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials after World War II. Numerous efforts to provide justice and redress for the most unspeakable acts of inhumanity have brought forth increasingly powerful international justice mechanisms from the International Court of Justice to the ad hoc tribunals of Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia and, as of July 1st of this year, the historic International Criminal Court (ICC).
In 2019 ICC launched the theme “My #journeytojustice” with a year-long call for stories. Participants can submit selfie-style video stories of under one minute by using the #journeytojustice hashtag or emailing PublicAffairs.Unit@icc-cpi.int. The stories are personal accounts of how those participating in the campaign first became interested in matters of justice, why, and where that led them to this day. These stories will be featured on the ICC social media platforms in the form of videos or photographs with their message.
What is the International Criminal Court (ICC)
The International Criminal Court is the only permanent international judicial body to try individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The Court is completely independent having been established by international treaty, the Rome Statute. The International Court of Justice (sometimes called the World Court) rules on disputes between governments but cannot prosecute individuals. The Court, established in 2002, seeks to hold to account those guilty of some of the world’s worst crimes. Champions of the court say it deters would-be war criminals, bolsters the rule of law, and offers justice to victims of atrocities.
ICC works in partnership with its member states to:
- Build a global movement of justice advocates
- Promote global civil society voices on international justice
- Make justice visible
- Advocate for all states to become party the Rome Statute of ICC
- Strengthen national laws to victims of war crimes crimes against humanity and genocide to deliver justice
- Strengthen state support for and cooperation with the ICC
- Ensure that the Court is effective, fair and independent
Each year, people around the world use International Justice Day to host events to promote international criminal justice, especially support for the International Criminal Court. 17 July unites all those who wish to support justice, promote victims’ rights, and help prevent crimes that threaten the peace, security, and well-being of the world.
World Day for International Justice Quotes
There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts. – Mahatma Gandhi
“As long as poverty, injustice, and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest.” – Nelson Mandela
People who don’t expect justice don’t have to suffer disappointment. – Isaac Asimov
Justice is the means by which established injustices are sanctioned. – Anatole France
Truth never damages a cause that is just. – Mahatma Gandhi
“No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe. – Frederick Douglass
Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence kills what it intends to create. – Pope John Paul II
Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. – Alexander Solzhenitsyn
We need to keep making our streets safer and our criminal justice system fairer – our homeland more secure, our world more peaceful, and sustainable for the next generation. – Barack Obama
“Justice has always evoked ideas of equality, of the proportion of compensation. Equity signifies equality. Rules and regulations, right and righteousness are concerned with equality in value. If all men are equal, then all men are of the same essence, and the common essence entitles them of the same fundamental rights and equal liberty…In short, justice is another name of liberty, equality, and fraternity.” – Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar.
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