Dr. Fatou Bensouda of The Gambia served as Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for nine years, from 2012 to 2021, having been elected to the post by consensus of the Assembly of States Parties on 12 December 2011 and sworn in on 15 June 2012.
Between 1987 and 2000, Mrs. Bensouda successively held the posts of Senior State Counsel, Principal State Counsel, Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, Solicitor General and Legal Secretary of the Republic, and Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, in which capacity she served as Chief Legal Advisor to the President and Cabinet of The Republic of The Gambia. She has also served as a General Manager of a leading commercial bank in The Gambia.
Her international career as a non-government civil servant formally began at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where she worked as a legal adviser and trial attorney before rising to the position of Senior Legal Advisor and Head of the Legal Advisory Unit in the years from 2002 to 2004, after which she joined the ICC as the Court’s first Deputy Prosecutor.
Mrs. Bensouda has served as delegate to United Nations conferences on crime prevention, the Organization of African Unity’s Ministerial Meetings on Human Rights, and as delegate of The Gambia to the meetings of the Preparatory Commission for the ICC.
Mrs. Bensouda has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the distinguished ICJ International Jurists Award (2009) presented by the then President of India P. D. Patil, and the 2011 World Peace Through Law Award presented by the Whitney Harris World Law Institute, Washington University, which recognised her work in advancing the rule of law and thereby contributing to world peace. In October 2021, at the end of her mandate, she was awarded The Outstanding Achievement Award by The International Law Association American Branch.
She is the recipient of honorary doctorates from Middlesex University and Vrije Universiteit, Brussels respectively, and holds a Master of Laws from the International Maritime Law Institute in Malta, making her The Gambia’s first expert in international maritime law and the law of the sea.
Mrs. Bensouda has been listed: by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world (2012); by the New African magazine as one of the “Most Influential Africans;” by Foreign Policy as one of the “Leading Global Thinkers” (2013); and by Jeune Afrique as one of 20 African women who, by their actions and initiatives in their respective roles, advance the African continent (2014).
