International Criminal Courts - Historical Background, Jurisdiction, Crimes, Principles Of Criminal Responsibility, And Defenses, Organization Of The Court
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A major step to close one of the important gaps in the enforcement system of international criminal law was taken on 17 July 1998 with the adoption of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Statute) at a diplomatic conference in Rome. The vote was 120 in favor to 7 against (including the United States, China, Iraq, and Israel), with twenty-one abstentions. The Statute provides for the establishment of a permanent international criminal court with jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. As of
January 2001, 139 states, including the United States and Israel, had signed the Statute and 27 of them had ratified it. It is expected to receive the sixty ratifications required under Article 126 for it to enter into force in 2001 or 2002.
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Until the adoption of the Statute, there was no single instrument containing a comprehensive and widely accepted definition of crimes under international law, and enforcement was left to national courts exercising territorial or universal jurisdiction over these crimes or to ad hoc national or international criminal courts. Although there were occasional ad hoc international criminal courts during…
The court will have subject matter jurisdiction under Article 5 over four categories of crimes under international law that are committed after entry into force of the Statute: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and, once it has been defined and a procedure for addressing it agreed, the crime of aggression. Genocide, a term coined in 1944 by Rafael Lempkin, is defined in Article 6 exac…
The court will be composed of six organs: the Presidency (consisting of three judges: the president and two vice presidents), three judicial divisions (Pre-Trial, Trial, and Appeals), the Office of the Prosecutor, and the Registry (Article 34). It will have eighteen full-time judges in the three judicial divisions, although that number can be raised by the Assembly of States Parties to meet an inc…
The procedure to be applied by the court draws upon both common and civil law models, but most aspects of the procedure are so modified that they should be seen as a new international criminal procedure. For example, although the procedure is largely adversarial, judges are expected to assert a greater control of litigation during all phases. Moreover, in carrying out investigations, the prosecuto…
The Statute is a major advance in international law with respect to the protection of victims, their participation in the proceedings, and their right to reparations. As stated above, the Statute provides for a Victims and Witnesses Unit, with appropriate expertise, to provide protection and support for victims. Article 68 (1) requires the Court to take "appropriate measures to protect the …
Article 86 provides that states are under a general obligation to cooperate fully with the court in its investigation and prosecution of crimes. These obligations include the duty to ensure that there are procedures available under national law to cooperate (Article 88), to surrender accused or escaped convicted persons promptly (Article 89), and to provide a wide range of cooperation, such as loc…
Article 112 provides for the establishment of an Assembly of States Parties. Its responsibilities will include adopting recommendations of the Preparatory Commission, providing management oversight of the Court, selecting the judges and the Prosecutor, deciding the budget and determining what action to take when states fail to cooperate with the court. The court is to be funded, as provided in the…
Amnesty International. The International Criminal Court: Making the Right Choices—Parts I–V, 1997–1998. London: Amnesty International. Also available on the World Wide Web at http://www.amnesty.org. Coalition for an International Criminal Court. World Wide Web document, 2001. http://www.iccnow.org. Contains text of the court's Statute, draft Elements of International Cr…
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