ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a short account of the birth of modern international criminal justice, the establishment of the ad hoc United Nations Criminal courts, the hybrid criminal tribunals, and the 1998 Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court (ICC). It goes on to discuss the political challenges faced by the ICC since it began its work in July 2002. There follows a discussion of the criticisms of the operations of the ICC that were investigated by the Independent Expert Review of the ICC (IER) that was established at the end of 2009 by the Assembly of States Parties. The most important findings and recommendations of the IER are analysed and assessed. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the future of the ICC.
