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The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). It was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome, Italy on 17 July 1998Michael P. Scharf (August 1998). Results of the Rome Conference for an International Criminal Court . The American Society of International Law. Retrieved on 31 January 2008.Each year, to commemorate the adoption of the Rome Statute, human rights activists around the world celebrate 17 July as World Day for International Justice. See Amnesty International USA (2005). International Justice Day 2005 . Retrieved on 31 January 2008. and it entered into force on 1 July 2002. As of January 2025, 125 states are party to the statute. Among other things, it establishes court function, jurisdiction and structure.
The Rome Statute established four core international crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, , and the crime of aggression. Those crimes "shall not be subject to any statute of limitations".Article 29, Non-applicability of statute of limitations Under the Rome Statute, the ICC can only investigate and prosecute the four core international crimes in situations where states are "unable" or "unwilling" to do so themselves. The jurisdiction of the court is complementary to jurisdictions of domestic courts. The court has jurisdiction over crimes only if they are committed in the territory of, by a national of, or on a vessel registered under a state party or a non-party that has accepted the jurisdiction of the Court; or if the United Nations Security Council makes a referral. How the Court works The provisions on the crime of aggression did not take effect until after it was defined at the 2010 Kampala Conference.
After the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders, international institutions began prosecuting individuals responsible for crimes against humanity which are inhumane actions that may be legal in a given nation, but represent gross human rights violations. In order to re-affirm basic principles of democratic civilisation, the accused received a regular trial, the right to defense and the presumption of innocence. The Nuremberg trials marked a crucial moment in legal history, and after that, some treaties that led to the drafting of the Rome Statute were signed.
UN General Assembly Resolution n. 260 9 December 1948, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, was the first step toward the establishment of an international permanent criminal tribunal with jurisdiction on crimes yet to be defined in international treaties. In the resolution there was a hope for an effort from the Legal U.N. commission in that direction.
The U.N. General Assembly, after the considerations expressed from the commission, established a committee to draft a statute and study the related legal issues. In 1951 a first draft was presented; a second draft followed in 1955 but there were a number of delays, officially due to the difficulties in the definition of the crime of aggression, that were only solved with diplomatic assemblies in the years following the statute's coming into force. The geopolitical tensions of the Cold War also contributed to the delays.
In December 1989, Trinidad and Tobago asked the General Assembly to re-open the talks for the establishment of an international criminal court and in 1994 presented a draft statute. The General Assembly created an ad hoc committee for the International Criminal Court and, after hearing the conclusions, a Preparatory Committee that worked on the draft for two years from 1996 to 1998.
Meanwhile, the United Nations created the ad hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and for Rwanda (ICTR) using statutes—and amendments due to issues raised during pre-trial or trial stages of the proceedings—that are quite similar to the Rome Statute.
The UN’s International Law Commission (ILC) considered the inclusion of the crime of ecocide to be included within the Draft Code of Crimes Against the Peace and Security of Mankind, the document which later became the Rome Statute. Article 26 (crime against the environment) was publicly supported by 19 countries in the Legal Committee but was removed due to opposition from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States.
By agreement, there was no official record of each delegation's vote regarding the adoption of the Rome Statute. Therefore, there is some dispute over the identity of the seven countries that voted against the treaty.Stephen Eliot Smith, "Definitely Maybe: The Outlook for U.S. Relations with the International Criminal Court During the Obama Administration", Florida Journal of International Law, 22:155 at 160, n. 38.
It is certain that the People's Republic of China, Israel, and the United States were three of the seven because they have publicly confirmed their negative votes. India, Indonesia, Iraq, Libya, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen have been identified by various observers and commentators as possible sources for the other four negative votes, with Iraq, Libya, Qatar, and Yemen being the four most commonly identified.
Explanations of Vote was publicly declared by India, Uruguay, Mauritius, Philippines, Norway, Belgium, United States, Brazil, Israel, Sri Lanka, China, Turkey, Singapore, and the United Kingdom.
On 11 April 2002, ten countries ratified the statute at the same time at a special ceremony held at the United Nations headquarters in New York City,Amnesty International (11 April 2002). The International Criminal Court – a historic development in the fight for justice . Retrieved on 31 January 2008. bringing the total number of signatories to sixty, which was the minimum number required to bring the statute into force, as defined in Article 126. The treaty entered into force on 1 July 2002; the ICC can only prosecute crimes committed on or after that date.Article 11 of the Rome Statute . Retrieved on 18 October 2013.
The states parties held a Review Conference in Kampala, Uganda from 31 May to 11 June 2010.Assembly of States Parties (14 December 2007). . Retrieved on 31 January 2008. The Review Conference adopted a definition of the crime of aggression, thereby allowing the ICC to exercise jurisdiction over the crime for the first time. It also adopted an expansion of the list of war crimes. Official records of the Review Conference . Retrieved 3 March 2011. Amendments to the statute were proposed to implement these changes.
The ICC has jurisdiction over these crimes in three cases: first, if they took place on the territory of a State Party; second, if they were committed by a national of a State Party; or third, if the crimes were referred to the Prosecutor by the UN Security Council. The ICC may begin an investigation before issuing a warrant if the crimes were referred by the UN Security Council or if a State Party requests an investigation. Otherwise, the Prosecutor must seek authorization from a Pre-Trial Chamber of three judges to begin an investigation proprio motu (on its own initiative). The only type of immunity the ICC recognizes is that it cannot prosecute those under 18 when the crime was committed. In particular, no officials – not even a head of state – are immune from prosecution.
The issue of immunities from the jurisdiction of the Court has become recently relevant, when the Court issued arrest warrants for Russian and Israeli Heads of State, since their immunities are granted from states which are not parties to the Rome Statute. States which have ratified the statute have waived the immunities of their officials with respect to the jurisdiction of the court by accepting the provisions of article 27:
However, according to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, states which have not ratified a treaty cannot be bound by its provisions, meaning that states such as Russia and Israel have not agreed to waive the immunities of their officials for that purpose. On the other hand, states which are bound to cooperate with the court under part 9 of the Rome Statute, shall comply with any and all cooperation requests of the Court, including arrest warrants for officials of non-state parties. However, article 98 of the Court, which has been used as an argument by state parties defending their non-compliance with arrest warrants as such reads as follows:
The Omar al-Bashir arrest warrant decisions have shed some light into the apparent conflict between these two articles by establishing two strong arguments in favor of the universality of article 27 and the nonexistence of a conflict with article 98. The first argument, commonly known as "The Security Council route", claims that when a situation is referred to the Court in accordance with article 13(b) of the Rome Statute, the Security Council is placing the state in question in the position of a state party to the Rome Statute, including the waiver of article 27. In the absence of a Security Council referral, the Court has included a plethora of other justifications for its decision. The argument, one of the justifications of the court which was reaffirmed in the decision against Mongolia in 2024, is highlighting the grammatical interpretation of article 98(1). The lack of reference on heads of state in the article, and the clear grammatical meaning that the article applies only to the State or diplomatic immunity of a person or property of a third State, is a strong indicator that the article is not an exception to article 27 for heads of state of States not Party.
The Rome Statute established three bodies: the ICC itself, the Assembly of States Parties (ASP), and the Trust Fund for Victims. The ASP has two subsidiary bodies. These are the Permanent Secretariat, established in 2003, and an elected Bureau which includes a president and vice-president. The ICC itself has four organs: the Presidency (with mostly administrative responsibilities); the Divisions (the Pre-Trial, Trial, and Appeals judges); the Office of the Prosecutor; and the Registry (whose role is to support the other three organs). The functions of these organs are detailed in Part 4 of the Rome Statute.
Any amendment to the Rome Statute requires the support of a two-thirds majority of the states parties, and an amendment (except those amending the list of crimes) will not enter into force until it has been ratified by seven-eighths of the states parties. A state party which has not ratified such an amendment may withdraw with immediate effect.Article 121 of the Rome Statute . Retrieved on 18 October 2013. Any amendment to the list of crimes within the jurisdiction of the court will only apply to those states parties that have ratified it. It does not need a seven-eighths majority of ratifications.
Ratification status
Jurisdiction, structure and amendment
The Rome Statute outlines the ICC's structure and areas of jurisdiction. The ICC can prosecute individuals (but not states or organizations) for four kinds of crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. These crimes are detailed in Articles 6, 7, 8, and 8 bis of the Rome Statute, respectively. They must have been committed after 1 July 2002, when the Rome Statute came into effect.
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