If this sense of resignation is a shared one, then it is okay: at least there is a communality in that, and a sense of a mission for the future. Negotiators know very well that a treaty is a combination of concessions, a sum of many little defeats and victories held together by the glue of a common goal.

That part - the most essential part - is yet to be seen.

When all this started five weeks ago, we promised that TerraViva would be the independent record of the ICC Conference. 

Our aim was to provide all those involved in this effort, and beyond, with a credible daily account of events and trends, one that would be useful for following the meeting and for making informed decisions - by doing good, honest and unpretentious journalism.

True to the well-established editorial standards of IPS, TerraViva has kept an independent stand, independent even from its own partners. To their credit, our friends from 'No Peace Without Justice' and the NGO Coalition for an International Criminal Court have consistently stayed true to the same values, even when the information in the paper was not exactly what they would have liked to see.

TerraViva had no agenda to advance at the Conference, save that of professional journalism. 

So we sincerely thank all participants for having read our paper attentively day after day, for their words of encouragement, for their praises and sharp criticism. We benefitted from these, and so did all those who had relied upon us these past few weeks.