On October 31, Archbishop Bernardito Auza, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the UN, gave an intervention during the Sixth Committee deliberations of the Seventy-third Session of the United Nations General Assembly on Agenda Item 82, dedicated to the “Report of the International Law Commission (ILC) on the work of its seventieth session (Cluster III).”  

In his statement, Archbishop Auza praised the ILC for its much needed work on the immunity of State officials from foreign criminal jurisdiction, balancing competing and diverging sovereignty concerns, namely the right of States to criminal laws against criminal behavior within their jurisdiction and the principle that foreign officials should not be prosecuted for acts performed in official capacity to prevent politically motivated prosecutions. He commented on the Report’s focus on the procedural issues with regard to timing of immunity considerations, the categories of actions affected, and procedural safeguards. He said that some egregious criminal acts of international concern never fall within the legitimate activities of a public official and should be excluded from immunity, which should not be confused with impunity.

The statement can be found here.