Should Terrorism Be Added to ICC Jurisdiction? (original) (raw)

On 17 July 1998, 120 states participated in a Rome conference to establish the International Criminal Court (ICC). After being ratified by 60 states, the ICC entered into force on 1 July 2002. This court has jurisdiction authority over the most serious crimes, including genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity (CAH) and aggression. Terrorism was one of the subjects discussed during this conference; however, terrorism was not eventually included within the ICC statutes. There was no doubt of the international importance and effects of terrorism; however, several states believed that terrorism should be managed by local criminal law. In contrast, other states believed that terrorist acts should be prosecuted in the ICC based on the war crimes or CAH statutes. This study argues that terrorism should be included in the ICC jurisdiction. First, this article claims that managing terrorism in a domestic court may not be accepted as a reasonable argument. Following this, the issues of state terrorism and the prosecuting difficulties related to this will be investigated. Second, given that not all terrorism acts can be considered war crimes or CAH, it is illogical for them to be considered in this way by the ICC. This study argues and demonstrates that inhumane acts such as hostage taking, arson and hijacking in particular circumstances, as well as property terrorism, may be not covered by existing ICC statutes. Third, this study presents the logical and legal arguments of including specific terrorism statutes in the ICC and argues that terrorism should be included in the ICC statutes. This section will discuss the ICC’s definition of terrorism, the ICC’s complementary role, the ICC as an independent organ, the authority of the ICC and terrorism as a separate crime.