ABSTRACT
Apart from the ‘trigger mechanism’ described in Chapter 3, there was another hurdle the Court would have to clear before being able to try a case: jurisdiction. Jurisdiction, according to a legal dictionary, is ‘the power or authority of a court to take cognisance of matters put before it and to decide such matters’ (Walker, 1980: 678). It has many different aspects, which I briefly discuss before turning to the two most controversial aspects for the rest of the chapter. The related issue of complementarity or admissibility is discussed in Chapter 3.
