ABSTRACT
This chapter concludes that a wide range of discretion has been used by the ICC Prosecutor when interpreting ‘sufficient gravity’. Whilst this criterion requires a judgment, in practice, the Prosecutor deployed a wide range of discretion when applying this criterion to the actual situations and cases. This, in turn, allowed the Prosecutor to exercise a choice when making a decision, whilst in essence she is only supposed to interpret the term. The chapter concludes that there is a necessity to make a distinction between discretion that can be exercised due to the vagueness of legal criteria and prosecutorial discretion as a power authorised by the law for decision makers. Whilst the first does not allow her to make a choice, the second does. Also, the chapter concludes with a discussion on the relevance of political considerations within the decision-making process in the context of the exercise of prosecutorial discretion. It suggests that there need not be a conflict between the broad sense of justice as outlined in the Statute and political factors when making decisions.
