The International Criminal Court announced on Monday that for the first time, its judges went as a group to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The judges “paid their respect to the victims of the concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, which serves as a sombre reminder of the importance of the court’s mandate to fight impunity for the perpetrators of such atrocities” in a Saturday visit, a statement from the ICC said.
The visit took place at the end of a three-day seminar and retreat held in Krakow, aimed at improving ICC appeals proceedings.
Two earlier retreats had been held in Nuremberg, Germany, in 2015, and Limburg, Netherlands, in 2016, in which the focus was on pre-trial and trial issues.
A statement by the Polish Foreign Ministry also noted the judges’ visit to Auschwitz- Birkenau, “a former German Nazi concentration camp where the most serious crimes” in international criminal law were committed.
