Antoine Kesia-Mbe Mindua is a Congolese lawyer who is currently a judge of the

International Criminal Court The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt) is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals ...

. He was previously a judge of the

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was a body of the United Nations that was established to prosecute the war crimes that had been committed during the Yugoslav Wars and to try their perpetrators. The tribunal ...

.http://www.icty.org/x/file/About/Chambers/judges_bios_en/ALJ_Mindua_Bio_en.pdf

Education

Mindua studied law and

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

Kinshasa Kinshasa (; ; ln, Kinsásá), formerly Léopoldville ( nl, Leopoldstad), is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Once a site of fishing and trading villages situated along the Congo River, Kinshasa is now one o ...

Nancy-Université Nancy-Université federated the three principal institutes of higher education of Nancy, France, Nancy, in Lorraine (region), Lorraine, France before their merger into the University of Lorraine: * Henri Poincaré University (UHP, also known as ...

Strasbourg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the Eu ...

and

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...

. He received his doctorate in

international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...

from the University of Geneva in 1995.

Career

Mindua served first as a Legal Officer and Chief of the Judicial Proceedings Support Unit at the

International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR; french: Tribunal pénal international pour le Rwanda; rw, Urukiko Mpanabyaha Mpuzamahanga Rwashyiriweho u Rwanda) was an international court established in November 1994 by the United Nation ...

Arusha Arusha City is a Tanzanian city and the regional capital of the Arusha Region, with a population of 416,442 plus 323,198 in the surrounding Arusha District Council (2012 census). Located below Mount Meru on the eastern edge of the eastern bran ...

from 1996 to 2001. He was also ambassador of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

Bern german: Berner(in)french: Bernois(e) it, bernese , neighboring_municipalities = Bremgarten bei Bern, Frauenkappelen, Ittigen, Kirchlindach, Köniz, Mühleberg, Muri bei Bern, Neuenegg, Ostermundigen, Wohlen bei Bern, Zollikofen , website ...

and Permanent Representative to the

United Nations Office at Geneva The United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG, french: Office des Nations Unies à Genève) in Geneva, Switzerland, is one of the four major offices of the United Nations where numerous different UN agencies have a joint presence. The main UNOG ...

from 2001 to 2006. During his tenure in Geneva, Mindua held a number of multilateral posts, including Vice-Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Programme of the

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integrati ...

, Chairman of the

Group of 77 The Group of 77 (G77) at the United Nations (UN) is a coalition of 134 developing countries, designed to promote its members' collective economic interests and create an enhanced joint negotiating capacity in the United Nations. There were 77 fou ...

(G77) and China, and Coordinator of the Group of 21 at the United Nations Conference on Disarmament. Mindua later served as a Trial Judge at the

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

from 2006 to 2015. Within the ICC, Kesia-Mbe chaired the Pre-Trial Division from 2018 until 2019. In 2018, he was assigned to consider the request of

prosecutor A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the Civil law (legal system), civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the ...

Fatou Bensouda Fatou Bom Bensouda (; ; born 31 January 1961) is a Gambian lawyer and former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). She served as Prosecutor from June 2012 to June 2021, after having ...

for the ICC to rule on whether it has jurisdiction over the deportations of

Rohingya The Rohingya people () are a stateless Indo-Aryan ethnic group who predominantly follow Islam and reside in Rakhine State, Myanmar (previously known as Burma). Before the Rohingya genocide in 2017, when over 740,000 fled to Bangladesh, an ...

people from Myanmar to Bangladesh. Also in 2018, he presided over hearings of

Alfred Yekatom Alfred Yekatom alias Rambo is a former leader of Central African Republic, Central African rebel group Anti-balaka, arrested in 2018 for his war crimes. Life Yekatom was born in 1975 in Bimbo. He is former corporal chief of Central African A ...

, a former militia leader accused of alleged atrocities against Muslims in the Central African Republic. In 2020, he was part of the three-member panel who judged that former Congolese vice president and militia leader

Jean-Pierre Bemba Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo (born 4 November 1962) is a politician in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was one of four Vice-Presidents of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, vice-presidents in the transitional government of the Democrat ...

, who had been acquitted of war crimes by the court in 2018, was not entitled to any damages or compensation for his 10-year stint in the

United Nations Detention Unit The United Nations Detention Unit (UNDU) is a UN-administered jail. It is part of the Hague Penitentiary Institution's Scheveningen location, more popularly known as Scheveningen Prison, in The Hague, Netherlands. The UNDU was established in 1 ...

(UNDU).ICC Pre-Trial Chamber II rejects Mr Bemba’s claim for compensation and damages

(ICC), press release of May 18, 2020.

Other activities

Mindua is also a professor at the Universities of Kinshasa and Geneva. He teaches public international law and international criminal law. He is a member of the

Crimes Against Humanity Initiative The Crimes Against Humanity Initiative is a rule of law research and advocacy project of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute. Started in 2008 by Professor Leila Nadya Sadat, the Initiative has as its goals the study of the need for a compre ...

Advisory Council, a project of the

Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute The Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at Washington University School of Law, established in 2000 as the Institute for Global Legal Studies, serves as a center for instruction and research in international and comparative law. Background ...

Washington University School of Law Washington University in St. Louis School of Law (WashULaw) is the law school of Washington University in St. Louis, a private university in St. Louis, Missouri. WashULaw has consistently ranked among the top law schools in the country; it is ...

in St. Louis to establish the world’s first treaty on the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mindua, Antoine Kesia-Mbe International Criminal Court judges Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Democratic Republic of the Congo judges Democratic Republic of the Congo diplomats International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia judges Democratic Republic of the Congo judges of United Nations courts and tribunals Democratic Republic of the Congo judges of international courts and tribunals 21st-century Democratic Republic of the Congo people