8 No. 67 JUSTICE from Judge Renata Tovar, who had escaped from Venezuela and appeared before our hearings in Washington, confirming that she was ordered to issue a false arrest warrant against Leopoldo López. Were she to refuse, she declared, she would have had to fear ending up with what was characterized to her by the Maduro regime as the “Afiuni effect,” referring to the imprisonment and torture of Venezuelan Judge Maria Lordes Afiuni for doing nothing other than acquitting a political prisoner. As a result of this acquittal, Judge Afiuni was arrested eleven years ago, imprisoned and tortured in detention, where she has been languishing in prison ever since. What’s more, recently, she was once again convicted and sentenced to yet another five years in prison, under the false and invented charge of “spiritual corruption.” I have also been acting on behalf of Judge Afiuni, specifically in cases where the “Afiuni effect”has been used and abused to intimidate other judges. We likewise heard from the Special Prosecutor in López’s case, Franklin Nieves, who had also escaped fromVenezuela. Mr. Nieves, who came before our inquiry, testified that he too had been ordered to issue false and trumped-up charges against Leopoldo López. We heard from witnesses who admitted that they were tortured into false confessions against Leopoldo López. All this testimony demonstrated the massive assault on the rule of law, on the independence of the judiciary, and on the democratic opposition inVenezuela. Six months after we tendered our report, the Foreign Minister of Canada at the time, Chrystia Freeland, led seven states in making the first ever collective Referral by a State Party, namelyVenezuela, to the International Criminal Court. To date, the ICC Special Prosecutor has yet to open an investigation into crimes against humanity in Venezuela, notwithstanding the fact that the UN Commission on Human Rights issued its own set of reports that corroborated our own reports regarding crimes against humanity inVenezuela. This was followed by the Organization of American States, through its newly appointed Special Rapporteur on the Responsibility to Protect, Jared Genser, who issued a report that not only corroborated our OAS Report, and the reports of the UN Commission on Human Rights, but in fact, condemned the Special Prosecutor's inaction in not opening an investigation regarding Venezuela. The Venezuelan case study should be contrasted with that of the Special Prosecutor, initiating an investigation into the“Situation in Palestine.” Israel, unlikeVenezuela, is not a State Party to the ICC, and Palestine is not yet a state (though I otherwise support the Palestinian right to self-determination and statehood); nor does Palestine possess the attributes for statehood under international law. Likewise, the principles of “complementarity”and the “gravity of the offense” should also preclude any jurisdiction by the ICC in this case. In summary, the Special Prosecutor did not open an investigation in a case whereVenezuela is a State Party and the evidence is compelling of crimes against humanity, but rather in the case of the “Situation of Palestine” regarding Israel, which is not a State Party, impugning the independence, impartiality, and integrity of the ICC. I say this not only as someone who has been a longtime supporter of the ICC, but as someone who, as a parliamentarian, convened the first ever Parliamentary Consultative Assembly for an International Criminal Court in 2002; who tabled legislation adopted by the Canadian Parliament domesticating the Rome Statute in Canadian law, thereby authorizing Canadian exercise of universal jurisdiction; and who has been supportive of the ICC as a successor international tribunal of final resort after Nuremberg, but not a tribunal of original jurisdiction when such jurisdiction is not even present as in the case of the “Situation in Palestine.” Indeed, I have been consistently disappointed of late in what appears to be discriminatory standards that have been exemplified in the inaction in theVenezuelan situation – where there was clear jurisdiction – and the action in the “Situation in Palestine” – where there was no jurisdiction. IV. Case Study: Muhammad Bin Salman’s Saudi Arabia The fourth and final case study is that of Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Muhammad bin Salman’s (MBS) Saudi Arabia, with the imprisoned Saudi blogger, Raif Badawi, as a looking glass into the assault on human rights and the pandemic of impunity, which underpins it. Badawi was imprisoned nine years ago for saying what the Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman himself has been advocating for the last four years: namely, calling for a “more open Saudi Arabia,”and a“more moderate Islam.” But not only has Badawi been imprisoned – and is now in his ninth year of imprisonment – but so has his sister Samar Badawi, for doing nothing other than calling for the right to drive, a reform that in fact was implemented by the Crown Prince himself; while his lawyer Waleed Abulkhair was imprisoned for fifteen years for doing nothing other than acting as Raif Badawi’s
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