Overview and Significance of the International Criminal Court (ICC) (original) (raw)
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The International Criminal Court
Gordon DiGiacomo and Susan Kang (Eds), The Institutions of Human Rights: Developments and Practices, University of Toronto Press, 2019
THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT IN WORLD POLITICS
The article discusses the importance of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a recently established intergovernmental organization to address the most heinous crimes. This organization is fi rst evaluated with respect to its impact on the notion of national sovereignty, upon which the international system has long been based. Then the contribution of global civil society in the creation of the ICC is outlined in order to demonstrate that the global order is gradually departing from being state-centric. And fi nally, the US opposition to the ICC is briefl y examined as that opposition is extremely relevant to the subject, given that the US is regarded as the sole superpower, which is supposed to have a determinative role in the conduct of global politics.
Objectives of International Criminal Law and Jurisdiction of ICC
Sociology and Anthropology, 2015
Although roots of criminal prosecutions are traced back in the 17 th and 18 th century but newly emerged discipline of international law namely international criminal law gained its scope after adoption Rome Statute. However, statute has not yet been universally accepted and various discrepancies have been raised by various states regarding the Jurisdiction and applicable procedure of International Criminal Court (ICC). Prior to the establishment of ICC, initially various international tribunals were established for the prosecutions of perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression, particularly after World War II. However, the prosecutions were subjected to serious criticism not only by the states representing the accused persons rather by the prosecuting states as well, on the grounds that all the prosecutions were partial in nature and even the same crimes were committed by the prosecution states but not a single individual was subjected to prosecutions from within the prosecuting states. Thereafter, instances have been reported of individual prosecutions till two decades back when again certain individuals including the heads of states were prosecuted for their alleged crimes, including genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. All these events and previous prosecutions resulted in establishment of ICC, but the statute has not yet been ratified by most of the states on a number of reasons and the most relevant of them is the jurisdiction of the court. Although, all the concepts and types of jurisdiction are not controversial but most of the concerns have been shown regarding the universal jurisdiction of ICC, and all the related concepts which provide the action of a state outside the jurisdiction of a states.
BiLD Law Journal 5(1), 2020
This study is critically analysing the lack of universal jurisdiction to the International Criminal Court (ICC) as to why the ICC is denied universal jurisdiction and what are the consequences resulting therefrom on realisation of international criminal justice. Findings show that, lack of universal jurisdiction to the ICC defeats the initial purpose of setting up a permanent ICC. Because, some nationals whose nations are not state parties to the ICC cannot be prosecuted. Meaning, an individual can commit an international crime and go unpunished by the sole reason that his state is not a party to the ICC. Seeing this threat, the Rome Statute provides for some referrals. Accordingly, cases to the ICC can be referred by state party to the Rome Statute, or by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) when acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, or by non-state party when making declaration to accept the ICC jurisdiction in relation to a case, or by the prosecutor of the ICC by initiating investigations proprio motu. The important question to be asked is that are these referrals effective in obtaining international criminal justice? Evidently the issue is controversial. It is therefore important for the ICC to be accorded universal jurisdiction. This move is crucial in reducing often created ad hoc tribunals to serve the same purpose of which the ICC was created to serve. But also, the UNSC will be effective dealing with other matters of the international peace and security.
International Journal for Innovation Education and Research
The principle of domestic jurisdiction in international law makes national governments responsible for protecting their citizens, investigating alleged abuses of human rights in their countries and bringing the perpetrators to justice. They governments may also extradite those accused of abuse of human rights to any other states prepared to give them a fair trial. Problem arises however, when governments are unable or unwilling to perform this duty or are themselves perpetrators of these crimes. Thus, millions of people have fallen victims of genocide, crimes against humanity and serious violations of humanitarian laws. But only very few of these perpetrators have been brought to justice in national courts as many governments claim sanctuary under the principle of domestic jurisdiction. The need therefore arises for the international community to act in order to protect helpless or defenseless citizens from being victims of crimes against humanity and human rights abuses, by bringin...
This paper covers a review of the article written by Damaska 1 which contains a great deal of critical analysis on the desired legal foundation of the International Criminal Court and doings of the court in reality since 2002. Our aim is to try to pay our attention to the real International Criminal Court and to answer the question of what the Court did so far. As will be seen through the paper, the role of the court in restorative justice discipline mentioning the retributive and/or restorative character of this permanent international criminal court will be discussed. It is, of course, not so far away to release the complementarity principle labelled in the Rome Statute. In this regard, the associations between the complementarity and the sovereignty will be explored giving example from reality such as Libya and Syria, and the principle will be also seen as a stabilizer-mechanism and a well-balanced tool between the sovereignty and universal jurisdiction. As a consequence, it can be said that regarding all points posted below, "just being in existence is not enough."