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

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Schabas William A
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
General Rule ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Courts ◽  
The Hague ◽  
Post Trial

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.

Construction Site for More Justice: The International Criminal Court After Two Years

2005 ◽  
Vol 99 (2) ◽  
pp. 370-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans-Peter Kaul
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Construction Site ◽  
The Hague ◽  
Kofi Annan

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was officially opened in The Hague on March 11, 2003, in a special ceremony attended by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan. Less than four years after the historic breakthrough by the Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries in Rome on July 17, 1998, the Statute of the ICC had entered into force on July 1, 2002. The required number of sixty ratifications, which is laid down in Article 126, paragraph 1 of the Rome Statute, was reached much faster than for other comparable multilateral treaties and faster than had been expected by the global public. Secretary-General Annan attracted widespread attention when he observed that July 1, 2002, was a decisive landmark in breaking with the cynical worldview of people like Joseph Stalin, who is alleged to have remarked that while “a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.”

Part 1 Establishment of the Court: Institution de la Cour, Art.3 Seat of the Court/Siège de la Cour

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Schabas William A
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Host State ◽  
The Hague

This chapter comments on Article 3 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Article consists of three paragraphs. Article 3(1) establishes The Hague as the seat of the Court. Paragraph (1) is mandatory, and does not allow for the seat of the Court to be located elsewhere, absent an amendment of the Statute. The Statute also specifies that the Netherlands is the ‘host State’. Article 3(2) requires that there be a Headquarters Agreement between the Court and the host State. Article 3(3) states that The Court may sit elsewhere, whenever it considers it desirable, ‘as provided in the Statute’.

Implications of Stripping Immunities of Heads of States on State Cooperation and the Effectiveness of Trial

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-93
Author(s):  
Patrick Kimani
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Head Of State ◽  
Invisibility Cloak ◽  
The Hague ◽  
State Cooperation

The development of international criminal law in the last seven decades has seen a gradual erosion of the integrity of immunities for heads of states. The journey from Nuremberg to The Hague has resulted in a permanent international criminal court. Article 27(2) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (the Rome Statute) disregards immunities as an effective bar to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Heads of states have been stripped of their ‘invisibility cloak’ from international criminal prosecutions. The Rome Statute places its reliance on the situation state’s authorities to cooperate with the ICC in its investigation and prosecution of crimes. A special tension is noticeable in circumstances where an incumbent head of state is accused at ICC while his or her state is placed under the general cooperation obligation. This tension is clearly manifest in the two criminal processes against Uhuru Kenyatta and Al Bashir. Bearing in mind the significant political muscle a sitting head of state wields in their state, it is quite likely that their state’s authorities will be very reluctant to discharge their cooperation obligations. The prosecution of sitting heads of states remains a challenge. Is it time to rethink the structure of the ICC or the implementation of the Statute?

Prosecutor v. Omar Al-Bashir, Judgment in the Jordan Referral Re Al-Bashir Appeal (Int'L Crim. Ct.)

2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (6) ◽  
pp. 1177-1233
Author(s):  
Thomas Weatherall
Keyword(s):  
Security Council ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Trial Chamber ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
International Courts ◽  
The Third ◽  
Heads Of State

On May 6, 2019, the Appeals Chamber (AC) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) delivered its judgment in Jordan's appeal of the December 11, 2017 decision of the Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) in Prosecutor v. Al-Bashir. The first and second grounds of appeal concerned whether Jordan had complied with its duty to cooperate with the request of the Court to arrest and surrender Al-Bashir. The third ground of appeal concerned whether the PTC abused its discretion in referring Jordan's noncompliance to the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute (ASP) and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Prior to the judgment, ICC PTCs had created divergent jurisprudence regarding the immunity of incumbent heads of state before international courts.

Part 2 Jurisdiction, Admissibility, and Applicable Law: Compétence, Recevabilité, Et Droit Applicable, Art.12 Preconditions to the exercise of jurisdiction/Conditions préalables à l’exercice de la compétence

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Schabas William A
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
General Rule ◽  
The United States ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
State Party ◽  
Applicable Law ◽  
Party State

This chapter comments on Article 12 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Article 12 was ‘[p]erhaps the most difficult compromise in the entire negotiations’. At the Rome Conference, there was a range of views on the ‘preconditions’ for jurisdiction, ranging from the narrow proposals of the United States restricting the Court's jurisdiction to nationals of States Parties, to a form of universal jurisdiction by which the Court would be able to prosecute any crime committed anywhere, providing that it could obtain custody over the offender. Article 12 establishes a general rule by which the Court may exercise jurisdiction over crimes committed on the territory of a State Party and, furthermore, over crimes committed by its nationals anywhere. The Court may also exercise jurisdiction if a non-party State has made a declaration pursuant to article 12(3).

Part 5 Investigation and Prosecution: Enquête Et Poursuites, Art.60 Initial proceedings before the Court/Procédure initiale devant la cour

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Schabas William A
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Arrest Warrant ◽  
Article 59 ◽  
Initial Appearance ◽  
The Hague

This chapter comments on Article 60 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Article 60 governs the initial appearance of the suspect before the Court. It mainly concerns the issue of interim release once the suspect is in the Court's custody. The title of article 60, ‘Initial proceedings before the Court’, is only partially accurate because a great deal of judicial activity occurs between the issuance of an arrest warrant or a summons to appear, governed by article 58, the arrest in the custodial State pursuant to article 59, and the confirmation hearing held in accordance with article 61. This process typically takes about a year. With some exceptions, the suspect will spend this period in the Court's Detention Unit in The Hague.

Part 3 General Principles of Criminal Law: Principes Généraux Du Droit Pénal, Art.32 Mistake of fact or mistake of law/Erreur de fait ou erreur de droit

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Schabas William A
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
General Rule ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Law Commission

This chapter comments on Article 32 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Article 32 addresses defences of mistake of fact or mistake of law. The drafters of the Statute did not want to leave the determination of defences to the discretion of judges, an approach used in all of the earlier models including the final draft Code of Crimes adopted by the International Law Commission in 1996. In general, the purpose of codifying defences in the Rome Statute is not to authorize them but rather to confine them. Thus, article 32 admits defences of mistake of fact and law but under certain conditions. If article 32 were not in the Statute, the general rule on mens rea set out in article 30 would apply without restriction, possibly subject to limitation by the Elements of Crimes.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document