The Relationship Between The International Criminal Court and National Courts
The adoption of the Statute of the permanent International Criminal Court (ICC), on 17 July 1998 in Rome, is rightly regarded as a milestone in the development of a system of international criminal justice, perhaps the capstone. In time, however, its greatest contribution to the cause of justice may well transpire to be its impact on national, rather than international, criminal law.
The 128-Article Statute, which will come into force once 60 states ratify it (as of 5 February 2002, 139 states had signed and 52 had ratified), is the world’s first international treaty to provide for the possibility to prosecute before a permanent international criminal court individuals accused of certain forms of outrageous conduct, which were for the most part already prohibited by either (or both) conventional and customary international humanitarian law.
Previously, there was no possibility to prosecute individuals suspected of certain international crimes before an international criminal court (with the limited exception of the ad hoc International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda). Prosecution of such individuals (where they all too rarely occurred) was left to states.