Joining the International Criminal Court

Why does it matter? Meet the ICC WHAT IS THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT (ICC)? It is the world’s first permanent international criminal court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals responsible for the most serious crimes under international law, namely genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression1 . The Rome Statute, the ICC’s founding treaty, was adopted on 17 July 1998 by 120 States, and entered into force on 1 July 2002 – the date the Court became operational. As of January 2018, 123 States are parties to the Rome Statute. IS THE ICC A UNITED NATIONS BODY? The Court is not a United Nations body. The Court is a permanent, independent institution established by an international treaty. In 2004, the Court and the UN signed a relationship agreement which establishes the legal foundation for cooperation. The ICC is also different from the UN ad hoc international criminal 1 At its sixteenth session held from 4 to 14 December 2017, the Assembly of States Parties decided to activate the Court’s jurisdiction over the crime of aggression as of 17 July 2018. tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, established by the UN Security Council to deal with specific situations, or the International Court of Justice, which deals with legal disputes between States. Nor is the ICC a human rights court as its mandate is to investigate and prosecute specific crimes defined in the Rome Statute. IS THE ICC MEANT TO REPLACE NATIONAL COURTS? No, the ICC is not a substitute for domestic courts. The ICC is an independent and impartial institution and a “court of last resort”. In other words, the ICC intervenes only in situations where States themselves are either unwilling or unable to genuinely investigate and prosecute the perpetrators of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity such crimes. The functioning of the Court is based on the ‘principle of complementarity’, under which its States Parties have affirmed their primary responsibility to investigate, prosecute and punish the perpetrators of the most heinous crimes under international law and protect the victims of these crimes.