Five years ago, in July 2002, the first permanent international criminal court was established as the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court entered into force. It was mandated to hold personally accountable perpetrators of such heinous crimes as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. This marked a watershed in the international community’s determination to bring to an end a tradition of impunity and put in place a culture of accountability.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, in a statement marking the five year anniversary, recalls that the creation of the Court represents one of the major achievements in international law during the past century. He underscored that the activities of the Court and its Prosecutor already had a deterring effect on potential perpetrators of international crimes and called on States not yet parties to the Rome Statute to consider becoming a party to it.
While the United Nations played an important role in its conception, the Court is now an international institution in its own right, independent from the United Nations and independent in the exercise of its jurisdiction from the Governments of the Members of the United Nations. However, the United Nations and the ICC are united in their determination to bring an end to impunity for the most heinous crimes known to humanity. Impunity for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes have for too long been tolerated or gone unpunished – now even Heads of State and Government must be held accountable in the event that they engage in committing, aiding or abetting international crimes.
In its struggle to fight impunity, the ICC cannot succeed on its own. As Philippe Kirsch, the President of the Court, likes to put it, “The Court is independent but interdependent . Unlike domestic mechanisms, the ICC does not have any enforcement powers. It can neither enforce its own arrest warrants nor its own judgements. It depends on others to carry out its mandate successfully. The primary support and cooperation for the Court’s activities must come from States. As a secondary resort, the Court can also turn to international and other organizations. The United Nations does its share in assisting the Court through providing evidence and logistics in conformity with the UN Charter and its mandates on the basis of a special agreement between the UN and the Court.
The International Criminal Court at its fifth anniversary has made some impressive gains in its still very young existence. After the creation of International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and within the context of the creation of the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, the ICC has become the centrepiece of a system of international criminal justice.
The Prosecutor of the Court is currently investigating four situations: in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where during one of the bloodiest conflicts in Africa, thousands of civilians have fallen victim to mass atrocities and countless children have been abused; in Darfur, where unspeakable crimes at a massive scale are still being committed; in Northern Uganda, where the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) abducted thousands of children turning them into child soldiers, servants and sex slaves; and in the Central African Republic, where there are in particular many allegations of rape and other acts of sexual violence against women.
By investigating these situations, the ICC is delivering on its promise to fight impunity in a professional, impartial and non-partisan manner. The Court is also proving that it is a judicial not a political institution. The key to its success is the cooperation and assistance it receives. States can manifest their support for the Court’s struggle to fight impunity by acceding to the Rome Statute. States that have decided not to join the Rome Statute can nevertheless find other practical ways of supporting the Court. In a recent speech, the Legal Adviser to the US Department of State has reaffirmed that, despite a sovereign decision not to become a party, the United States shares a commitment to ensuring accountability for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. It made good on this pledge by not opposing the Security Council’s decision to refer the crimes committed in Darfur to the ICC for prosecution preferring to find “practical ways to work with ICC supporters to advance our shared goals of promoting international criminal justice.
Today, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court has 104 States Parties, representing a solid majority of the 192 States Members of the United Nations and significant progress towards the Court’s eventual goal of universal jurisdiction. Other States are favourably considering their accession to the Rome Statute. Japan, for example, will soon become a party to the Rome Statute after its Parliament recently approved its accession.
As Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has declared in unequivocal terms on a number of occasions, the International Criminal Court can count on the support of the United Nations in the future just as it could count on our support in the past.
Under-Secretary-GeneralNicolas Michelis The Legal Counsel of the United Nations
