ABSTRACT
Advocates of a permanent international court to try perpetrators of war crimes and other "crimes against humanity" achieved a major success in July 1997, with the adoption of a multilateral agreement called "the Statute of Rome". Organizationally, the Statute creates an International Criminal Court of eighteen justices to be selected by the treaty parties, and elaborates the Court's structures and procedures. Only the sporadic use of national judicial mechanisms existed, and more often than not these legal systems were either unavailable to the victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity, or were deemed inadequate afterthoughts. The definition of "crimes against humanity" includes the catch-all phrase "other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health". Substantively, the Statute confers jurisdiction on the International Criminal Court over four crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.
