Mrs. Fatou Bensouda:

We get the criticism that we have not investigated George W. Bush and Tony Blair. I explained the situation relating to George W. Bush before the Deputy arrived. The US is not a state party to the Rome Statute and we cannot investigate where we do not have jurisdiction. When we are selecting cases, we do not target individuals. We have never done this. We do not say that this particular person has committed crimes before we investigate to discover whether they have committed crimes. People ask me why we do not go after Paul Kagame or Yoweri Museveni. Our investigations are what should guide us. If we are investigating, we collect the facts and evidence and they lead us to the individual who bears the greatest responsibility, not the other way round. Just getting up and saying we will investigate Mr. X contains a presumption that we already think that person has committed the crimes. We have tried as much as possible not to operate in that way. We collect the information, look at the evidence and then see who is the person who bears responsibility for those crimes.

In respect of Tony Blair, I think the Deputy is possibly talking about the crimes that took place in Iraq. First, Iraq is not a state party to the Rome Statute so we cannot investigate in Iraq. I repeat that the US is not a state party so we cannot investigate crimes committed by US nationals because this is how the ICC operates. We investigate on the territory of a state party or the nationals of a state party. That is impossible with the US. With regard to the other parties involved in Iraq that are state parties such as the UK, the Deputy will recall that there was a series of investigations regarding the crimes that were allegedly committed by UK nationals. If one looks at our website, one can see all of the assessments made by the court. Before the Deputy arrived, I said that the ICC is a court of last resort. It complements national systems. If national systems are investigating these crimes, we do not get involved. We must wait and see what they come up with and monitor developments to see that what is supposed to be done has been done. In respect of Tony Blair, several investigations and prosecutions were initiated in the UK regarding crimes that took place in Iraq. In that case, we assessed that it would not be in the interests of justice to intervene. As I said, we do not just go around hand picking and saying that we must investigate, because our jurisdiction does not permit us to do that.