The International Criminal Court
| Published date | 01 August 2006 |
| Date | 01 August 2006 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1350/jcla.70.4.317 |
| Subject Matter | Comment |
COMMENT
The International Criminal Court
Alec Samuels
All civilised people abhor the terrible international crimes that occurred
during the 20th century and since the start of the 21st century—Hitler,
Stalin, the Japanese, Pol Pot, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Congo, Uganda,
East Sudan, Timor, the Balkans, and Iraq. The absence of effective
international law and effective international institutions to bring offend-
ers to justice has been a serious failing on the part of the international
community. Ad hoc tribunals at Nuremberg 1946 and Tokyo 1947; the
International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) (Milo-
sevic); the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the
Special Court for Sierra Leone and for East Timor have achieved some
degree of success. At long last, as from 1 July 2002, we now have the
permanent International Criminal Court (ICC),1the necessary mini-
mum 60 states, including the UK, having ratified the UN Rome Statute
of the International Criminal Court of 17 July 1998. This has been
brought into effect in England and Wales and Northern Ireland by the
International Criminal Court Act 2001 (and in Scotland by the Inter-
national Criminal Court (Scotland) Act 2001). The law is not retro-
spective; it is protection for the future.
The ICC has jurisdiction over international crimes, which are now
also crimes in UK law, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and
war crimes. There is a great deal of overlapping. These crimes are very
easy to recognise, but not always so easy to define. Very full definitions
are to be found in the Rome Statute and in the International Criminal
Court Act 2001, Sched. 8.
Genocide
‘Genocide’ is defined in the UN Convention for the Prevention and
Suppression of the Crime of Genocide 1948 and it comprises the inten-
tional killing of a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. For exam-
ple, Jews in the Second World War, tribes in Rwanda, Kurds in Iraq,
Muslims in the Balkans, and similar tragedies.
Crimes against humanity
The essence of crimes against humanity is the widespread and system-
atic attack directed against the civilian population, with knowledge of
the attack, including murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation,
torture, rape and other sexual violence, persecution, and enforced
disappearance.2
1 See www.icc-cpi.int/about.html, accessed 16 May 2006.
2 See Prosecutor v Tadic, Case No. IT–94–1–T, Opinion and Judgement, ICTY Trial
Chamber, 7 May 1997.
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