The International Criminal Court: four organs, 18 judges and jurisdiction over four crimes

Background

The Rome Statute is the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court, and it established three separate bodies: the Assembly of States Parties, the Court itself and the Trust Fund for Victims. The Rome Statute grants the ICC jurisdiction over four main crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. The Court comprises four separate organs, namely the Presidency, the Judicial Divisions, the Office of the Prosecutor and the Registry. Its 18 judges sit in 3 divisions, Pre-Trial, Trial and Appeals, and conduct the judicial proceedings. The Court may exercise jurisdiction where genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes were committed on or after 1 July 2002 by a State Party national, or in the territory of a State Party, or in a State that has accepted the jurisdiction of the Court. A situation may also be referred to the ICC Prosecutor by the United Nations Security Council under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. Jurisdiction over the fourth crime, the crime of aggression, runs on a separate track: the definition was adopted by amending the Rome Statute at the 2010 Kampala Review Conference and the Assembly of States Parties activated the Court's jurisdiction over it as of 17 July 2018, and where there is no Security Council referral the Court may not exercise that jurisdiction over an act of aggression committed by a national or on the territory of a State Party that has not ratified or accepted those amendments. The Court is intended to complement, not to replace, national criminal systems, and prosecutes only where States are unwilling or unable to do so genuinely. It has no police force of its own and relies on cooperation from countries for arrests; the seat of the Court is in The Hague, the Netherlands.