The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (often referred to as the International Criminal Court Statute or the Rome Statute) is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). It was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome on 17 July 1998 and it entered into force on 1 July 2002. As of 1 February 2012, 121 states are party to the statute. Among other things, the statute establishes the court's functions, jurisdiction and structure.
Under the Rome Statute, the ICC can only investigate and prosecute the core international crimes (genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression) in situations where states are unable or unwilling to do so themselves. The court can investigate crimes only in states that signed the Rome Statute unless authorized by the U.N. Security Council.
Read more about Rome Statute Of The International Criminal Court: History, Ratification Status, Review and Amendment
Famous quotes containing the words criminal court, statute, criminal and/or court:
“Think of admitting the details of a single case of the criminal court into our thoughts, to stalk profanely through their very sanctum sanctorum for an hour, ay, for many hours! to make a very barroom of the mind’s inmost apartment, as if for so long the dust of the street had occupied us,—the very street itself, with all its travel, its bustle, and filth, had passed through our thoughts’ shrine! Would it not be an intellectual and moral suicide?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Amidst the downward tendency and proneness of things, when every voice is raised for a new road or another statute or a subscription of stock; for an improvement in dress, or in dentistry; for a new house or a larger business; for a political party, or the division of an estate;Mwill you not tolerate one or two solitary voices in the land, speaking for thoughts and principles not marketable or perishable?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“How many condemnations I have witnessed more criminal than the crime!”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“Rome, like Washington, is small enough, quiet enough, for strong personal intimacies; Rome, like Washington, has its democratic court and its entourage of diplomatic circle; Rome, like Washington, gives you plenty of time and plenty of sunlight. In New York we have annihilated both.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)