Part 6 The Trial: Le Procès, Art.62 Place of trial/Lieu du procès

Subject(s):

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

This chapter comments on Article 62 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Article 62 establishes the seat of the Court as the place of the trial. International courts have a ‘seat’. It is where they ‘sit’. Article 3, entitled ‘Seat of the Court’, specifies that the seat ‘shall be established at The Hague in the Netherlands’. It does not state clearly that the Court is to sit, as a general rule, in The Hague, but this is implied by paragraph 3 of article 3. Article 62 seems somewhat redundant and even confusing. Taken literally, its placement in Part 6 of the Statute (‘The Trial’) might be taken to indicate, a contrario, that other proceedings, both pre- and post-trial, must be held in The Hague at the seat of the Court. But that seems to be an absurd result.