The Appeals Chamber:

Judgment on the appeal of the Prosecutor against the "Decision on the Prosecution's Application for a Warrant of Arrest against Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir"

On 3 February, 2010, the Appeals Chamber at the International Criminal Court (ICC) decided to reverse, by unanimous decision, ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I’s decision of 4 March, 2009, to the extent that Pre-Trial Chamber I decided not to issue a warrant of arrest in respect of the charge of genocide against Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir. The Appeals Chamber directed the Pre-Trial Chamber to decide anew on whether or not to extend the arrest warrant to cover the charge of genocide. The Appeals Chamber found that demanding that the existence of genocidal intent must be the only reasonable conclusion amounts to requiring the Prosecutor to disprove any other reasonable conclusions and to eliminate any reasonable doubt. The Appeals Chamber found this standard of proof to be too demanding at the arrest warrant stage, which is governed by article 58 of the Rome Statute. This amounted to an error of law.

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Expulsion of Humanitarian NGOs from Darfur Continues

On 21st January 2010 the government of Sudan revoked the licenses of 26 organisations including humanitarian relief organisations working in Darfur. On the same occasion the government issued ultimatums to 13 other organisations that they should conform to Sudan’s laws within 30 days or their licenses will be revoked as well. According to the Registrar of Voluntary and Charitable Organisations in Khartoum the decision was taken in line with Sudan’s law governing the work of relief organisations as well as the agreements between the government of Sudan and these organisations. Khartoum said that the organisations “have not carried out any activities” and “failed to renew their annual permits or submit required reports.” The following organisations have their licenses revoked:

(1). Prospect Sudan (2). Counterpart International (3). Feed the Children (4). Food for the Hungry (5). Safe Harbor (6). The Halo Trust (7). Right to Play (8). Air Serve (9). Mercy International (10). Global Peace Mission (11). Population Media Centre (12). Sudanese International Development and Relief Association (SIDRA) (13). Royal Dutch Aid (14). Canadian Association for African Development (15). SPEG – Holland (16). Norwegian League for Disabled (17). African Association for Development (18). Health Assistance for Children (HAFC) (19). Nabata Charitable Foundation (20). Impact (21). Cins – Italy (22). Ulfa Aid (23). Joint Projects Organization (24). Arabic Centre for Immigrant Labors (25). Tomp – Germany (26). Human Relief and Peace.

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Participation at upcoming Darfur Civil Society consultations

To: H.E. Djibril Bassole, AU/UN Joint Chief Mediator for Darfur

To: H.E. Ahmed Abdalla Aal Mahmoud, State Minister for Foreign Affairs; State of Qatar

We, the undersigned representatives of Darfur civil society organisations in the Diaspora and refugees camps, highly value your relentless efforts to resolve the armerd conflict and achieve peace for our beleaguered people in Darfur.

The Darfur Civil Society Inaugural conference convened in Doha in November 2009 was a welcome step in the right direction. It would empower Darfur civil society and allow their contribution to a peaceful resolution of the country's crisis including Darfur. In fact, that important gathering comes in fulfilment of UN Security Council Resolution S/RES/1828 (2008) of 31st July 2008 in which the Security Council underlined "... the need for the engagement of civil society, including women and women-led organizations, community groups and tribal leaders " in the peace process in Darfur.

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