In 2011, at the age of 92, the diminutive but indomitable Benjamin Ferencz rose to deliver the closing prosecution speech at the first trial ever heard before the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague. Wearing black robes and a starched white neck band, the veteran lawyer, who had prosecuted Nazi mass murderers at the Nuremberg war crimes trials more than 60 years earlier, saluted a “historic moment in the evolution of international criminal law”.
Granting Ferencz, who has died aged 103, the honour of appearing on the prosecution team – in the trial of a Congolese warlord – acknowledged the extraordinary role he had played in advancing the cause of international justice.
