International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court is an intergovernmental organisation and international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. Established in 2002 under the multilateral Rome Statute, the ICC is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for the international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. The ICC is intended to complement, not replace, national judicial systems; it can exercise its jurisdiction only when national courts are unwilling or unable to prosecute criminals. It is distinct from the International Court of Justice, an organ of the United Nations that hears disputes between states.
The ICC can generally exercise jurisdiction in cases where the accused is a national of a state party, the alleged crime took place on the territory of a state party, or a situation is referred to the Court by the United Nations Security Council. As of October 2024, there are 125 states parties to the Rome Statute, which are represented in the court's governing body, the Assembly of States Parties. Countries that are not party to the Rome Statute and do not recognise the court's jurisdiction include China, India, Russia, and the United States.
The Office of the Prosecutor has opened investigations into over a dozen situations and conducted numerous preliminary examinations. The Court issued its first arrest warrants in 2005, and issued its first judgment in 2012. Indicted individuals have included heads of state and other senior officials. In recent years, notable cases include arrest warrants issued for Russian president Vladimir Putin, in connection with the invasion of Ukraine and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant, along with several Hamas leaders, in connection with the Gaza war.
Since its establishment, the ICC has faced significant criticism. Opponents, including major powers that have not joined the court, question its legitimacy, citing concerns over national sovereignty and alleging susceptibility to political influence. The court has also been accused of bias and of disproportionately targeting African leaders. Others have questioned the court's effectiveness, pointing to its reliance on state cooperation for arrests, its relatively small number of convictions, and the high cost of its proceedings.
History
Background
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. 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, so the convention never entered into force.Following the Second World War, the allied powers established two ad hoc tribunals to prosecute Axis leaders accused of war crimes. The International Military Tribunal, which sat in Nuremberg and is often referred to as the "Nuremberg Trials", prosecuted German leaders, including for Nazi perpetration of The Holocaust, while the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo prosecuted Japanese leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity. 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 World War II. At the request of the General Assembly, the International Law Commission 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.
Benjamin B. Ferencz, an investigator of Nazi war crimes after World War II and the Chief Prosecutor for the United States Army at the Einsatzgruppen trial, became a vocal advocate of the establishment of international rule of law and of an international criminal court. In his book Defining International Aggression: The Search for World Peace, he advocated for the establishment of such a court. Another leading proponent was Robert Kurt Woetzel, a German-born professor of international law, who co-edited Toward a Feasible International Criminal Court in 1970 and created the Foundation for the Establishment of an International Criminal Court in 1971.
Formal proposal and establishment
In June 1989, A. N. R. Robinson, who would later become Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, revived the idea of a permanent international criminal court by proposing the creation of a tribunal to address the illegal drug trade. In response, the General Assembly tasked the ILC with once again drafting a statute for a permanent court.While work began on the draft, the UN Security Council established two ad hoc tribunals in the early 1990s: the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, created in 1993 in response to large-scale atrocities committed by armed forces during the Yugoslav Wars, and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, created in 1994 following the Rwandan genocide. The creation of these tribunals further highlighted to many the need for a permanent international criminal court.
In 1994, the ILC presented its final draft statute for the International Criminal Court to the General Assembly and recommended that a conference be convened to negotiate a treaty that would serve as the Court's 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. After considering the Committee's report, the General Assembly created the Preparatory Committee on the Establishment of the ICC to prepare a consolidated draft text. From 1996 to 1998, six sessions of the Preparatory Committee were held at the United Nations headquarters in New York City, during which NGOs provided input and attended meetings under the umbrella organisation of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court. In January 1998, the Bureau and coordinators of the Preparatory Committee convened for an inter-sessional meeting in Zutphen in the Netherlands to technically consolidate and restructure the draft articles into a draft.
Finally, the General Assembly convened a conference in Rome in June 1998, with the aim of finalising 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 seven, with 21 countries abstaining. The seven countries that voted against the treaty were China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar, the U.S., and Yemen.
Israel's opposition to the treaty stemmed from the inclusion in the list of war crimes "the action of transferring population into occupied territory", a provision added during the Rome Conference at the insistence of Arab countries with the specific intention of targeting Israeli citizens.The UN General Assembly voted on 9 December 1999 and again on 12 December 2000 to endorse the ICC. 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.
The Court issued its first arrest warrants on 8 July 2005, and the first pre-trial hearings were held in 2006.
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. The Review Conference led to the adoption of two resolutions that amended the crimes under the jurisdiction of the Court. Resolution 5 amended Article 8 on war crimes, criminalising the use of certain kinds of weapons in non-international conflicts whose use was already forbidden in international conflicts. Resolution 6, pursuant to Article 5 of the Statute, provided the definition and a procedure for jurisdiction over the crime of aggression.
Operation
The ICC began operations on 1 July 2002, upon the entry into force of the Rome Statute, a multilateral treaty that serves as the court's charter and governing document. States which become party to the Rome Statute become members of the ICC, serving on the Assembly of States Parties, which administers the court. As of January 2025, there are 125 ICC member states, 29 states have signed but not ratified the Rome Statute and 41 states have neither signed nor become parties to the Rome Statute.Intended to serve as the "court of last resort", the ICC complements existing national judicial systems and may exercise its jurisdiction only when national courts are unwilling or unable to prosecute criminals. It lacks universal territorial jurisdiction and may only investigate and prosecute crimes committed within member states, crimes committed by nationals of member states, or crimes in situations referred to the Court by the UN Security Council.
The ICC held its first hearing in 2006, concerning war crimes charges against Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, a Congolese warlord accused of recruiting child soldiers; his subsequent conviction in 2012 was the first in the court's history. The Office of the Prosecutor has opened twelve official investigations and is conducting an additional nine preliminary examinations.