On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse speaks with Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji, who served as president of the International Criminal Court (ICC) from 2018 to 2021. Together, they discuss his new book, End of Immunity: Holding World Leaders Accountable for Aggression, Genocide, War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity.
Prior to joining the ICC in 2012, Judge Eboe-Osuji was the legal advisor to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, where he anchored the High Commissioner’s interventions in cases involving human rights questions. Before entering international public service, he practiced law as a barrister in Canada—his adoptive country—and Nigeria—his country of birth. He also taught international criminal law at the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa and has an extensive record of legal scholarship and publications, including International Law and Sexual Violence in Armed Conflicts (2013) and Protecting Humanity (2010). Judge Eboe-Osuji is a former fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.
In this episode, they discuss his journey to becoming president of the ICC; why he felt it was important to write a book about the history of immunity for heads of state; his thoughts on the 2024 U.S. Supreme Court ruling granting immunity to U.S. presidents; how lessons from kings and emperors of the past can help us understand why international systems were built to end such immunity; what it would mean to enact an international law that upholds an actionable “right to peace”; and his perspective on former President Trump’s stated desire to annex Canada.