The Rome Statute

The Rome Statute is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). It defines the court's jurisdiction, powers, and procedures. The statute was adopted on July 17, 1998, and entered into force on July 1, 2002. As of March 2023, 123 countries are states parties to the Rome Statute.

The ICC has jurisdiction over the core crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. These crimes are defined in the Rome Statute.

The ICC can only prosecute individuals. States, organizations, and other entities cannot be prosecuted by the ICC.

The principle of complementarity is a fundamental principle of the ICC. It means that the ICC can only prosecute cases if the national courts are unwilling or unable to do so. This is to ensure that the ICC does not interfere with the national judicial systems.

There are 18 judges on the ICC. They are elected by the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute for a term of nine years.

The ICC is headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands.

The ICC first started operating on July 1, 2002.

As of March 2023, the ICC has completed 10 cases.

The most recent case that the ICC has completed is the case of Dominic Ongwen. He was convicted of 61 crimes, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The ICC faces a number of challenges, including lack of cooperation from states, lack of funding, and political pressure. These challenges make it difficult for the ICC to carry out its mandate.

The ICC has been criticized for being too expensive, too slow, and biased against African countries. These criticisms have led some countries to withdraw from the Rome Statute.

The ICC has achieved a number of successes, including bringing to justice individuals who would otherwise have escaped punishment, deterring future atrocities, and raising awareness of international criminal law.

The future of the ICC is uncertain. It faces a number of challenges, but it has also achieved a number of successes. It is possible that the ICC will continue to play an important role in the fight against impunity, but it is also possible that it will eventually be replaced by a more effective international criminal court or abolished.

Individuals can support the ICC by learning more about its work, supporting organizations that work to promote the ICC, and writing to their elected officials and urging them to support the ICC.

The Rome Statute defines genocide as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.