Part 1 Establishment of the Court: Institution de la Cour, Art.1 The Court/La Cour

Subject(s):

Elements of crimes — International criminal law, conduct of proceedings — Evidence

This chapter comments on Article 1 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Article 1 is a sixty-word digest of the salient features of the International Criminal Court. It establishes the Court as a permanent institution with the ‘power’ to exercise jurisdiction over the most serious crimes of international concern. It is to be complementary to national criminal jurisdictions. The provision has not been subject to any significant consideration in the case law of the Court. In a sense, it might well have been omitted from the Rome Statute, as it adds little or nothing in terms of legal consequences.