Portal:Genocide/Selected article/3

The current premises of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was established in 2002 as a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression, although it cannot currently exercise its jurisdiction over the crime of aggression. The court can only prosecute crimes committed on or after July 1, 2002, the date its founding treaty, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, entered into force.

As of April 2007, 104 states are members of the Court, and a further 41 countries have signed but not ratified the Rome Statute. However, a number of states, including the United States, China and India, continue to oppose it.

The Court can generally only exercise jurisdiction in cases where the accused is a national of a state party, the alleged crime took place on the territory of a state party, or a situation is referred to the Court by the United Nations Security Council. The Court is designed to complement existing national judicial systems: it can only exercise its jurisdiction when national courts are unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute such crimes. Primary responsibility to exercise jurisdiction over suspected criminals is therefore left to individual states.

The official seat of the ICC is in The Hague, Netherlands, but its proceedings may take place anywhere. The Court is separate from, and should not be confused with, the International Court of Justice (often referred to as the “World Court”), which is the United Nations organ that settles disputes between nations.

"International Criminal Court" is sometimes abbreviated as ICCt to distinguish it from several other organizations abbreviated as ICC. However, the more common abbreviation "ICC" is used in this article.