Tomoko Akane (赤根 智子, Akane Tomoko) is a Japanese jurist and a current judge at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Japan.

Tomoko Akane in 2018

Professional career

After graduation from university she became a public prosecutor in 1982. During her career, she assumed posts at different levels of the justice system.[1] She chose to become a public prosecutor due to the lack of opportunities the private sector provided for women and prosecutor since she wanted to be involved in serving justice to victims and criminals.[2] Akane was the chief prosecutor of the Hakodate district in Hokkaido between 2010 and 2012, and was elected the public prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Japan in 2012.[3] Akane was also a professor in Criminal Justice Practice at both, the Chukyo University Law School and the Nagoya University Law School between 2005 and 2009.[1] In Nagoya, she was also researching in the field of Criminal justice reform between 2005 and 2006.[4] She was the head of the International Cooperation Department (ICD) in the Japanese Ministry of Justice between 2009 and 2010.[3] Her involvement in the activities of the United Nations Asia and Far East Institute for the Prevention of Crime Treatment of Offenders (UNAFEI) was for seven years[3] and she assumed as the director of the UNAFEI between July 2013 and October 2014.[5]

Fields involved

In her career she has learnt that it is not only important to punish the criminals, but also to encourage them not to participate in criminal activity again.[6][3] During her work for the UNAFEI, she was twice deployed to Kenya, where she was involved in the training of probation officers.[7]

Judge at the International Criminal Court

She was nominated as a candidate to the ICC in April 2016 by the Government of Japan[8] and elected as a judge of the ICC on the 4 December 2017 by the Assembly of State Parties in New York.[9] She assumed her post in March 2018 for a tenure of nine years.[2] As a judge at the ICC she is mainly assigned to the Pre-Trial II.[1]

In 20 March 2023, Russia initiated a criminal investigation against Akane, Rosario Salvatore Aitala and Sergio Gerardo Ugalde Godinez in response to an arrest warrant issued on 17 March 2023 against its president Vladimir Putin for the unlawful deportations of Ukrainian children to Russia during the Russian-Ukrainian war.[10][11][12] In July, 2023, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs issued a warrant for her arrest.[13][14]

She said in an interview with a Japanese TV station."Even if one of the judges dies, they can be replaced by any number of people, so it's not worth going after them. I think."[15]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Judge Tomoko Akane". www.icc-cpi.int. International Criminal Court. Retrieved 2020-11-16.
  2. 1 2 "Tomoko Akane". intlschoolnet (in Japanese). Retrieved 2020-11-16.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Keynote Speeches Ms. Tomoko Akane | The 3rd WORLD CONGRESS on PROBATION Tokyo JAPAN 2017". www.moj.go.jp. Retrieved 2020-11-16.
  4. ↑ "Akane Tomoko". 9 April 2007. Retrieved 16 November 2020.
  5. ↑ "Staff｜About Us｜UNAFEI". www.unafei.or.jp. Retrieved 2020-11-16.
  6. ↑ "Newly elected Japanese ICC judge to start work in The Netherlands in March". Mainichi Daily News. 2018-03-04. Retrieved 2020-11-16.
  7. ↑ Akane, Tomoko (January 2015). "Activities of and legal technical assistance by The United Nations Asia and Far East Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders" (PDF). ICD News. Retrieved 16 November 2020.
  8. ↑ "Japan State Response" (PDF). www.coalitionfortheicc.org. April 2016. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 6, 2017. Retrieved 23 May 2023.
  9. ↑ "The Election of Ms. Tomoko Akane, Ambassador for International Judicial Cooperation and Public Prosecutor of Supreme Public Prosecutors Office of Japan as Judge of the International Criminal Court (ICC) (Statement by Foreign Minister Taro Kono)". Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. Retrieved 2020-11-16.
  10. ↑ "Situation in Ukraine: ICC judges issue arrest warrants against Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova". International Criminal Court. 17 March 2023.
  11. ↑ "Russia blasts back at ICC over Putin arrest warrant". POLITICO. 2023-03-20. Retrieved 2023-03-27.
  12. ↑ "Russia defies Putin arrest warrant by opening its own case against ICC". SWI swissinfo.ch. Retrieved 2023-03-27.
  13. ↑ "Судья МУС Томоко Аканэ объявлена в розыск в РФ". Коммерсантъ (in Russian). 2023-07-27. Retrieved 2023-07-27.
  14. ↑ Joseph, James (2023-07-27). "Russian Interior Ministry issues arrest warrant for ICC judge that issued arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin". www.jurist.org. Retrieved 2023-07-28.
  15. ↑ 「裁判官が死んでも代わりがいる」プーチン大統領に逮捕状を出した日本人　国際刑事裁判所の赤根智子判事　現在ロシアから指名手配 TBS NEWS JNN
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