ABSTRACT
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is the first permanent international criminal tribunal, which has jurisdiction over the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crime of aggression. By signing and ratifying the Rome Statute, States voluntarily accept a limitation to their sovereignty. The willing delegation of competence over (international) crimes by States to a supranational institution constitutes a revolutionary development in international (criminal) law. Indeed, the International Military Tribunals for Nuremberg and the Far East were created by the Allies, for the purposes of bringing the leaders of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan to justice. The International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda were established by the UN Security Council in order to prosecute those responsible for international crimes committed in the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. In contrast, the ICC is a treaty-based tribunal with competence limited to core crimes perpetrated either on the territory of a Member State to the Rome Statute or by nationals of a Member State. It embodies the main legacy of the International Military Tribunal of Nuremberg, providing that ‘crimes against international law are committed by men, not by abstract entities, and only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provisions of international law be enforced’. 1 In distinction to its predecessors, which were imposed by victor countries or by a political body, such as the UN Security Council, with restricted democratic representativity, the ICC was established by the same States that have primary jurisdiction over crimes committed and freely renounce their status as the sole holders of the right to exercise the jus puniendi. This innovation is extremely significant considering that criminal law has historically been the most self-contained part of a domestic justice system, constituting one of the most central expressions of the socio-cultural identity of a country. 2 The authority to determine the boundaries of individual liberty, through the definition of criminal conduct, is a central element of a State’s absolute sovereignty, without any international or supranational restriction.
