[JURIST] UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official website] on Wednesday urged [statement] nations around the globe to carry out the rulings made by the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website; JURIST backgrounder]. Speaking before 500 high-level officials at a ceremony for the tenth anniversary of the ICC, Ban praised the court for bringing perpetrators of human rights abuses to justice. However, Ban also emphasized that for the ICC to be effective, governments need to cooperate with the court to make sure its decisions are carried out:

As we celebrate the Court’s significant accomplishments, we must also acknowledge that there are still many forces that seek to undermine the edifice we have all striven so hard to create. … This is why it is important to ensure that governments are committed to doing what it takes to enable the Court to carry out its work—from capturing and transferring to the Court those who are the subject of arrest warrants to supporting the Court’s proceedings by making information and evidence available to the Prosecutor, the Defence and the legal representatives of victims.

The ICC is currently investigating conflicts in seven nations [UN News Centre report]: Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, the Darfur region of western Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Kenya, Libya and Uganda.

Earlier this week Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] urged the ICC [JURIST report] to increase its efforts to bring war criminals to justice. The ICC recorded its first conviction in March 2012 in a case that not only sent Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga Dyilo [JURIST report] to prison for his use of child soldiers, but also helped the court establish its guiding principles for providing reparations to victims. However, to the dismay of many, individuals such as Joseph Kony [JURIST news archive] of Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army and Congolese rebel leader Bosco Ntaganda [JURIST report] remain at large.