International Criminal Court Crimes Prosecuted
International Criminal Court Crimes Prosecuted by the Court
Introduction to International Criminal Court Crimes Prosecuted
Four categories of crime are included in the ICC’s jurisdiction: genocide; crimes against humanity; war crimes; and crimes of aggression. Aggression cannot be the subject of any prosecution, however, until the Assembly of States Parties, a body made up of one representative from each nation that has accepted the statute, amends the statute to define the crime and set out the conditions for prosecution. The issue of aggression is politically charged and participants at the Rome Conference could not agree on its definition. Proposed definitions centered around the idea of an armed invasion or attack by one nation against another with the intent to violate its territorial integrity or political independence.
The Rome Statute defines genocide as the commission of certain acts with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The acts listed are killing members of the group or causing them serious bodily or mental harm; forcing the group to live in conditions calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction in whole or in part; and using forcible measures to prevent births within the group or to transfer children out of the group to another group.
Crimes against humanity, as specified by the statute, are certain acts committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population. The acts include murder or extermination; slavery; deportation or forcible transfer of a population; imprisonment and other severe deprivations of physical liberty; torture; violent sexual offenses, such as rape, sexual slavery, and forced prostitution; forced disappearance; and apartheid. The statute leaves open the possibility of prosecuting other, unnamed inhumane acts of a similar character.
The statute’s list of war crimes is extensive. It includes acts prohibited by the 1949 Geneva Conventions on the laws of war: willful killing, torture, intentionally causing great suffering, hostage taking, extensive destruction and looting of property, depriving prisoners of war of a fair trial or forcing them to serve in the military of a hostile power, and unlawful deportation or confinement. The statute also defines as war crimes 26 other serious violations of the laws and customs of war, such as pillage, intentionally directing attacks against civilians, using poison weapons or poison gas, and subjecting individuals to mutilation or scientific experimentation. Finally, the statute contains special rules that extend the court’s war crimes jurisdiction to civil wars, which historically were not regulated by international law. However, the court’s jurisdiction excludes “internal disturbances” such as riots and other sporadic acts of violence.” (1)
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