Crimes

Crimes

The Rome Statute grants the ICC jurisdiction over four main crimes:

1. **Genocide**: Acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a specific
national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.

2. **Crimes Against Humanity**: Serious violations committed as part of a large-scale attack

against any civilian population, such as murder, rape, imprisonment, forced disappearances,
enslavement, slavery, torture, apartheid, and deportation.

3. **War Crimes**: Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions in the context of armed conflict,
such as using child soldiers, killing civilians, torturing prisoners of war, and intentionally
attacking hospitals, historic monuments, or religious buildings.

4. **Crime of Aggression**: The use of armed force by a state against the sovereignty, integrity,
or independence of another state.

The Rome Statute grants the ICC jurisdiction over four main crimes:

1. Genocide: Any of the acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
specific national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.
2. Crimes against humanity: Serious violations committed as part of a large-scale attack
against any civilian population, such as murder, rape, imprisonment, forced disappearances,
enslavement, slavery, torture, apartheid, and deportation.
3. War crimes: Grave breaches of the Geneva conventions in the context of armed conflict,
e.g., the use of child soldiers; killing civilians or torturing prisoners of war; intentionally
attacking hospitals, historic monuments, or religious buildings.
4. Crime of aggression: The use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, integrity, or
independence of another State.

Jurisdiction

The Court can exercise jurisdiction in a situation when:

 the Prosecutor, after authorization from the Pre-Trial Chamber, initiates an investigation
on his own or upon request from a Member State when the crimes were committed in the
territory of or by the national of a Member State.
 a non-member State decides to accept the jurisdiction of the Court.
 the UN Security Council refers a case to the Prosecutor, irrespective as to whether it
involves Member States or non-member States.

The Court jurisdiction is complementary, and can be exercised only if the concerned State is
unwilling or genuinely unable to investigate or prosecute.

Criticism

Some critics believe that the court has too little authority to deal with criminals. Others think it
has too much prosecutorial power, threatening state sovereignty, and that it lacks due process and
other checks against political bias. Some worry that the prospect of international justice prolongs
conflicts by dissuading war criminals from surrendering.

Many African nations have accused the ICC of only targeting the African continent, because all
of the Court’s 31 cases have dealt with alleged crimes in African states. States like the U.S.,
China, and India complain that joining the Court as a member will infringe their national
sovereignty.