Volume I, s.4 General Principles of International Criminal Law, 22 Non-Applicability of Statute of Limitations
Christine Van den Wyngaert, John Dugard
From: The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
Edited By: Professor Antonio Cassese, Professor Paola Gaeta, Mr John R.W.D. Jones
- Subject(s):
- Statutes of limitation — Crimes against humanity — War crimes — Peremptory norms / ius cogens — Travaux préparatoires
Article 29 of the Rome Statute asserts that ‘[the] crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court shall not be subject to any statute of limitations’. This means that no limitation statute may be applied to the crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court and that such crimes are ‘imprescriptible’. Limitation statutes relate to the question of the time dimension in the prosecution of serious crimes: they provide a formal time limit for such prosecutions to be brought after the commission of the crime. The Statute excludes such limitations for the crimes that are now...