What is the International Criminal Court?

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is the first permanent international judicial
body capable of trying individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity and war
crimes when national courts are unable or unwilling to do so.
Definition of the ICC under the Rome Statute
Article 1 The Court - An International Criminal Court (the Court) is hereby
established. It shall be a permanent institution and shall have the power to exercise
its jurisdiction over persons for the most serious crimes of international concern, as
referred to in this Statute, and shall be complementary to national criminal
jurisdictions. The jurisdiction and functioning of the Court shall be governed by the
provisions of this Statute.
ICC in relation to the United Nations
Article 2 Relationship of the Court with the United Nations - The Court shall be
brought into relationship with the United Nations through an agreement to be
approved by the Assembly of States Parties to this Statute and thereafter concluded
by the President of the Court on its behalf.
The Courts Purpose
The ICC has the jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for
crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

the international

The ICC is intended to complement existing national judicial systems and it may
therefore only exercise its jurisdiction when certain conditions are met, such as
when national courts are unwilling or unable to prosecute criminals or when
the United Nations Security Council or individual states refer investigations to the
Court.
The Rome Statue
The ICC began functioning on 1 July 2002, the date that the Rome Statute entered
into force. The Rome Statute is a multilateral treaty which serves as the ICC's
foundational and governing document. States which become party to the Rome
Statute, for example by ratifying it, become member states of the ICC.
Currently, there are 124 states which are party to the Rome Statute and therefore
members of the ICC. However, Burundi, South Africa, and Gambia have given
formal notice that they will withdraw from the Rome Statute.
ICCs History
ICCs story began in earnest in 1872 with Gustav Moynier one of the founders of
the International Committee of the Red Cross who proposed a permanent court in
response to the crimes of the Franco-Prussian War.

The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War (German: DeutschFranzsischer Krieg, French: Guerre franco-allemande), often referred to in

France as the War of 1870 (19 July 1870 10 May 1871), was a conflict
between the Second French Empire of Napoleon III and the German states of
the North German Confederation led by the Kingdom of Prussia.
In 1872 Moynier submitted, after the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-71, a
proposal for the creation of an international arbitration court to penalize
violations of International Humanitarian Law. Because of concerns by most
national governments over state sovereignty, the measure was not adopted
o International humanitarian law (IHL) is the law that regulates the
conduct of war (jus in bello). It is that branch of international law which
seeks to limit the effects of armed conflict by protecting persons who
are not participating in hostilities, and by restricting and regulating the
means and methods of warfare available to combatants.

The next serious call for an internationalized system of justice came from the
drafters of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, who envisaged an ad hoc international
court to try the Kaiser and German war criminals of World War I.

The Paris Peace Conference, also known as Versailles Peace

Conference, was the meeting of the Allied victors, following the end of World
War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers following the
armistices of 1918.
o The trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav
nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off
a diplomatic crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to
the Kingdom of Serbia, and entangled international alliances formed
over the previous decades were invoked. Within weeks, the major
powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world.

The establishment of an international tribunal to judge political leaders accused of

international crimes was first proposed during the Paris Peace Conference in 1919
following the First World War by the Commission of Responsibilities.

Poison gas - was introduced by Imperial Germany, and was subsequently

used by all major belligerents in the war against enemy soldiers, in violation
of the 1899 Hague Declaration Concerning Asphyxiating Gases and the 1907
Hague Convention on Land Warfare, which explicitly forbade the use of
"poison or poisoned weapons" in warfare.
Rape of Belgium - Within the first two months of the war, the German
occupiers terrorized the Belgians, killing thousands of civilians and looting
and burning scores of towns, including Leuven, which housed the country's
preeminent university, mainly in fear of Belgian resistance fighters, or francstireurs. This action was in violation of the 1907 Hague Convention on Land
Warfare provisions that prohibited collective punishment on civilians and
looting and destruction of civilian property in occupied territories.

The issue was addressed again at a conference held in Geneva under the auspices
of the League of Nations in 1937, which resulted in the conclusion of the first

convention stipulating the establishment of a permanent international court to try

acts of international terrorism. The convention was signed by 13 states, but none
ratified it and the convention never entered into force.

The League of Nations (abbreviated as LN in English, La Socit des

Nations [la ssjete de nsj ] abbreviated as SDN or SdN in French) was
an intergovernmental organisation founded on 10 January 1920 as a result of
the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first
international organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world
peace.

Following World War II, the Allies set up the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals to try
Axis war criminals.

Following the Second World War, the allied powers established two ad
hoc tribunals to prosecute axis power leaders accused of war crimes.
The International Military Tribunal, which sat in Nuremberg, prosecuted
German leaders while the International Military Tribunal for the Far
East in Tokyo prosecuted Japanese leaders.
The Nuremberg trials (German: die Nrnberger Prozesse) were a series
of military tribunals, held by the Allied forces after World War II, which were
most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political,
military, judicial and economic leadership of Nazi Germany who planned,
carried out, or otherwise participated in the Holocaust and other war crimes.
The trials were held in the city of Nuremberg, Germany.
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), also known
as the Tokyo Trials or the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, was convened on
April 29, 1946, to try the leaders of the Empire of Japan for three types of war
crimes. "Class A" crimes were reserved for those who participated in a joint
conspiracy to start and wage war, and were brought against those in the
highest decision-making bodies; "Class B" crimes were reserved for those
who committed "conventional" atrocities or crimes against humanity; "Class
C" crimes were reserved for those in "the planning, ordering, authorization, or
failure to prevent such transgressions at higher levels in the command
structure"

In 1948 the United Nations General Assembly first recognised the need for a
permanent international court to deal with atrocities of the kind prosecuted after
the Second World War.
At the request of the General Assembly, the International Law Commission (ILC)
drafted two statutes by the early 1950s but these were shelved during the Cold
War, which made the establishment of an international criminal court politically
unrealistic.

In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly (UN GA) adopted the
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in
which it called for criminals to be tried by such international penal tribunals
as may have jurisdiction and invited the International Law Commission (ILC)

to study the desirability and possibility of establishing an international

judicial organ for the trials of persons charged with genocide.
While the ILC drafted such a statute in the early 1950s, the Cold War stymied
these efforts and the General Assembly effectively abandoned the effort
pending agreement on a definition for the crime of aggression and an
international Code of Crimes.
o The International Law Commission was established by the United
Nations General Assembly in 1948 for the "promotion of the
progressive development of international law and its codification.
o the purpose of making recommendations as to which issues required
to be addressed in international law and the steps desirable to that
end. The committee's work led to the League of Nations Codification
Conference of 1930, which dealt mainly with the issues of nationality
laws, territorial waters and state responsibility to damage caused to
foreign nationals.
o The General Assembly (GA) is the main deliberative, policymaking
and representative organ of the UN. Its powers are to oversee the
budget of the United Nations, appoint the non-permanent members to
the Security Council, receive reports from other parts of the United
Nations and make recommendations in the form of General Assembly
Resolutions.

In June 1989, motivated in part by an effort to combat drug trafficking, Trinidad and
Tobago resurrected a pre-existing proposal for the establishment of an ICC and the
UN GA asked that the ILC resume its work on drafting a statute.

In June 1989 Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago A. N. R. Robinson revived

the idea of a permanent international criminal court by proposing the creation
of such a court to deal with the illegal drug trade.

Following Trinidad and Tobago's proposal, the General Assembly tasked the ILC with
once again drafting a statute for a permanent court.
While work began on the draft, the United Nations Security Council established
two ad hoc tribunals in the early 1990s. The International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia was created in 1993 in response to large-scale atrocities
committed by armed forces during Yugoslav Wars and the International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda was created in 1994 following the Rwandan Genocide. The
creation of these tribunals further highlighted the need for a permanent
international criminal court.

The conflicts in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia as well as in Rwanda in the

early 1990s and the mass commission of crimes against humanity, war
crimes, and genocide led the UN Security Council to establish two separate
temporary ad hoc tribunals to hold individuals accountable for these
atrocities, further highlighting the need for a permanent international criminal
court.

The International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible

for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed
in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, more commonly
referred to as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia or ICTY, is a body of the United Nations established to prosecute
serious crimes committed during the Yugoslav Wars, and to try their
perpetrators. The tribunal is an ad hoc court which is located in The Hague,
Netherlands.
The International
Criminal
Tribunal
for
Rwanda
(ICTR) was
an international court established in November 1994 by the United Nations
Security Council in Resolution 955 in order to judge people responsible for
the Rwandan Genocide and other serious violations of international
law in Rwanda, or by Rwandan citizens in nearby states, between 1 January
and 31 December 1994.
o The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the
Tutsi,[2] was
a genocidal mass
slaughter of Tutsi in Rwanda by
members of the Hutu majority government. An estimated 500,000
1,000,000 Rwandans were killed during the 100-day period from April 7
to mid-July 1994,[1] constituting as many as 70% of the Tutsi and 20%
of Rwanda's total population. The genocide and widespread slaughter
of
Rwandans
ended
when
the
Tutsi-backed
and
heavily
armed Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) led by Paul Kagame took control
of the country. An estimated 2,000,000 Rwandans, mostly Hutus, were
displaced and became refugees.

In 1994, the ILC presented its final draft statute for an ICC to the UN GA and
recommended that a conference of plenipotentiaries be convened to negotiate a
treaty and enact the Statute. To consider major substantive issues in the draft
statute, the General Assembly established the Ad Hoc Committee on the
Establishment of an International Criminal Court, which met twice in 1995.

From 1996 to 1998, six sessions of the UN Preparatory Committee were held
at the United Nations headquarters in New York, in which NGOs provided
input into the discussions and attended meetings under the umbrella of the
NGO Coalition for an ICC (CICC). In January 1998, the Bureau and coordinators
of the Preparatory Committee convened for an Inter-Sessional meeting in
Zutphen, the Netherlands to technically consolidate and restructure the draft
articles into a draft.

Based on the Preparatory Committees draft, the UNGA decided to convene

the United Nations Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of an
ICC at its fifty-second session to finalize and adopt a convention on the
establishment of an ICC.
The Rome Conference took place from 15 June to 17 July 1998 in Rome, Italy, with
160 countries participating in the negotiations and the NGO Coalition closely
monitoring these discussions, distributing information worldwide on developments,
and facilitating the participation and parallel activities of more than 200 NGOs.

At the end of five weeks of intense negotiations, 120 nations voted in favor of the
adoption of the Rome Statute of the ICC, with seven nations voting against the
treaty (including the United States, Israel, China, Iraq and Qatar) and 21 states
abstaining.

Finally the General Assembly convened a conference in Rome in June 1998,

with the aim of finalizing the treaty to serve as the Court's statute. On 17 July
1998, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was adopted by a
vote of 120 to 7, with 21 countries abstaining. The seven countries that voted
against the treaty were China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar, the United States,
and Yemen. Following 60 ratifications, the Rome Statute entered into force on
1 July 2002 and the International Criminal Court was formally established. The
first bench of 18 judges was elected by the Assembly of States Parties in
February 2003. They were sworn in at the inaugural session of the Court on
11 March 2003.
Following 60 ratifications, the Rome Statute entered into force on 1 July 2002
and the International Criminal Court was formally established. [ The first bench
of 18 judges was elected by the Assembly of States Parties in February 2003.
They were sworn in at the inaugural session of the Court on 11 March 2003.

Trial History
To date, the Prosecutor opened investigations in ten situations: two in the Central
African Republic; Cte d'Ivoire; Darfur, Sudan; the Democratic Republic of the
Congo; Georgia, Kenya; Libya; Mali; and Uganda. Additionally, the Office of the
Prosecutor is conducting preliminary examinations in ten situations in Afghanistan;
Burundi; Colombia; Gabon; Guinea; Iraq / the United Kingdom; Nigeria; Palestine;
registered vessels of Comoros, Greece, and Cambodia; and Ukraine.
The Court's Pre-Trial Chambers have publicly indicted 39 people. The ICC has issued
arrest warrants for 31 individuals and summonses to eight others. Seven persons
are in detention. Proceedings against 22 are ongoing: nine are at large as fugitives,
four are under arrest but not in the Court's custody, eight are at trial, and one is
appealing his conviction. Proceedings against 17 have been completed: three have
been convicted, one has been acquitted, six have had the charges against them
dismissed, two have had the charges against them withdrawn, one has had his case
declared inadmissible, and four have died before trial.
The Lubanga and Katanga-Chui trials in the situation of the DR Congo are
concluded. Mr Lubanga and Mr Katanga were convicted and sentenced to 14 and 12
years imprisonment, respectively, whereas Mr Chui was acquitted.
The Bemba trial in the Central African Republic situation is concluded. Mr Bemba
was convicted on two counts of crimes against humanity and three counts of war
crimes. This marked the first time the ICC convicted someone of sexual violence as
they added rape to his conviction.

Trials in the Ntaganda case (DR Congo), the Bemba et al. OAJ case and the Laurent
Gbagbo-Bl Goud trial in the Cte d'Ivoire situation are ongoing. The Banda trial in
the situation of Darfur, Sudan, was scheduled to begin in 2014 but the start date
was vacated. Charges against Dominic Ongwen in the Uganda situation and Ahmed
al-Faqi in the Mali situation have been confirmed; both are awaiting their trials.

Developments
The Court issued its first arrest warrants on 8 July 2005, and the first pre-trial
hearings were held in 2006.[14] The Court issued its first judgment in 2012 when it
found Congolese rebel leader Thomas Lubanga Dyilo guilty of war crimes related
to using child soldiers.
In 2010 the states parties of the Rome Statute held the first Review Conference of
the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in Kampala, Uganda. There
they adopted two amendments to the Statute. The second amendment defined
the crime of aggression and outlined the procedure by which the ICC could
prosecute individuals. However, the conditions outlined in the amendment have not
yet been met and the ICC can not yet exercise jurisdiction over crimes of
aggression.
In October 2016, after repeated claims that the court was biased against African
states, Burundi, South Africa and Gambia announced their withdrawals from the
Rome Statute.[16] Experts believe that Kenya, Namibia and Uganda may soon follow
in withdrawing from the court, leading to a mass African exodus. [16]