Carla Ponte

Carla Ponte Speaker Biography

Ms. Carla Del Ponte is a Swiss and international Prosecutor and diplomat. Within the United Nations System, she is a former Chief Prosecutor of two United Nations international criminal tribunals.

As an investigating magistrate and public prosecutor in Switzerland, Ms. Del Ponte investigated and prosecuted cases of money laundering, terrorism, arms smuggling and espionage, and other facets of organized transnational crime.

After serving as the Attorney-General of Switzerland, she was appointed Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in August 1999. She remained Prosecutor at the ICTR and ICTY until 2003 and 2008, respectively. 

A total of 91 indictments were filed during Ms. Del Ponte’s term, including against Slobodan Milošević while he was an acting head of State, and a number of high-ranking generals and top politicians were convicted of a range of crimes. Among her achievements, Ms. Del Ponte proved beyond reasonable doubt that genocide was committed at Srebrenica, in eastern Bosnia, and that rape was used as an instrument of terror in Bosnia, and as such constituted a crime against humanity. She also succeeded in securing guilty verdicts against several defendants accused of committing crimes against civilians during the epic siege of Sarajevo. In a 2001 interview, Del Ponte emphasized "Justice for the victims and the survivors requires a comprehensive effort at international and national level."

Ms. Del Ponte served as Swiss ambassador to Argentina from 2008 to February 2011.

Since September 2012, she has served as a Commissioner of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry for Syria.