8 May 2025 — Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice has joined eight partner organisations in submitting a joint letter to the International Law Commission (ILC), urging critical improvements to draft article 7 of the Draft Articles on the Immunity of State Officials from Foreign Criminal Jurisdiction.

The letter—submitted in advance of the ILC’s 76th Session—welcomes the inclusion of the crimes of aggression, slavery, and the slave trade in the latest version of draft article 7, recognising them as violations of jus cogens norms of international law. However, the signatories warn that the draft article must go further to ensure its relevance and effectiveness.

The Global Initiative Against Impunity for International Crimes and Serious Human Rights Violations (GIAI), a consortium of nine civil society organisations, including Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice, calls for the ILC to:

• Explicitly affirm the non-exhaustive nature of the list of crimes to which immunity ratione materiae does not apply—directly in the text of draft article 7, not only in commentary.
• Add a new subparagraph (j) to article 7(2), to future-proof the Draft Articles and ensure that other international crimes of global concern are not excluded from accountability due to technicalities in interpretation.

We urge the ILC to adopt a framework that reflects the realities of ongoing global harm and the need for accessible justice, dismantling systems of impunity and centring survivor-informed approaches.

Consortium Members:
Civil Rights Defenders, Coalition for the International Criminal Court, European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, Impunity Watch, International Federation for Human Rights, Parliamentarians for Global Action, REDRESS, TRIAL International, and Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice.

📄 Read the full joint letter.