A SPECIALIST in international criminal law and human rights law, Karim Khan is at the forefront of efforts to bring justice to victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Serving as the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) from June 2021 on a nine-year-term, the English barrister has responded fast to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, launching an ICC inquiry into the situation in March last year.
“This is not really a time for talking, it's a time for action. International law cannot be a passive spectator. It needs to move with alacrity, to protect and to insist on accountability,” he told a media briefing, after an informal meeting of the UN Security Council a month later.
Khan is leading major organisational and cultural change at the Office of the Prosecutor. He published an annual report in November last year, the first of its type by the Office. He has also embarked on the “most ambitious technical modernisation initiative” in the history of the Office, Project Harmony, an evidence management platform that harnesses the power of advanced technology, including AI and machine learning, to collect, store, preserve, analyse and review increasing quantities of complex evidence.
He has already made two visits to Sudan, as part of the investigation into the situation in Darfur, and during his second visit in August 2022, he briefed the UN Security Council directly from Khartoum, which was the first ever briefing to the Council by the ICC from a situation country.
“It underlined a message I have been clear on since taking up my position,” he said. “We can only accelerate our investigative work if we bring ourselves closer to the communities impacted by Rome Statute crimes.”
Earlier, he has served as the first special adviser and head of the UN Investigative Team to promote accountability for crimes committed by terrorist group Islamic State in Iraq between 2018 and 2021.
A member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, his early interest in international human rights is driven by the voluntary work he has done with the community.
Khan is the founding director of the Global Victims Initiative, which aims to provide redress and advice to victims of international crimes throughout the globe, and the Peace and Justice Initiative, a Hague-based NGO focused on effective implementation of the ICC Rome Statute at the national level.
