INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT INVESTIGATION

Introduction 

Since its establishment in 2002, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has worked to bring those responsible for some of the worst crimes in history to justice. Supporters of the court claim that it provides justice to victims of crimes, strengthen the rule of law, and deters potential war criminals. 

However, since its establishment, the court has been under fire from a variety of quarters and has failed to secure the support of powerful nations like China, Russia, and the United States. Numerous African governments are upset that the court’s prosecutions have targeted their continent, and two nations have withdrawn from it. Under President Donald Trump, US resistance to the ICC became more adamant, and despite the Biden administration’s more accommodative stance, tensions still exist. Despite its enormous obstacles, some observers believe the ICC’s ongoing probes into the crises in the Palestinian territories and Ukraine show the court’s enduring significance.

Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Sudan’s Darfur region, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Libya, Uganda, Bangladesh/Myanmar, Palestine, the Philippines, and Venezuela are among the countries in which the International Criminal Court has launched investigations. Furthermore, preliminary investigations were carried out by the Office of the Prosecutor in cases involving Bolivia, Colombia, Guinea, Iraq, the United Kingdom, Nigeria, Georgia, Honduras, South Korea, Ukraine, and Venezuela. Initial inquiries about incidents that occurred on July 1, 2002, were closed in South Korea, Gabon, Honduras, registered boats of Comoros, Greece, Cambodia, and Colombia.

The Pretrial Chambers of the Court made the number of 63 persons public. Thirty-one are the subject of continuing proceedings; twenty-six are fugitives at large and five are on trial. 32 people have had their cases resolved; two are serving their sentences, seven have completed their sentences, four have been found not guilty, seven have had their charges dropped, four have had their charges withdrawn, and eight have passed away before the case against them has ended.

The Office of the Prosecutor had received 8,874 communications on alleged offenses as of September 2010. 4,002 of these messages were rejected as “manifestly outside the jurisdiction of the Court” following an initial review.

Some other instances, including Bolivia, Guinea, Nigeria, and Ukraine, are undergoing “preliminary examination” in addition to the sixteen in which the Prosecutor has initiated formal inquiries.

Closed were preliminary investigations into the circumstances in Korea, Comoros with the Israeli attack on three ships that were part of the Gaza flotilla operation, Honduras, and Gabon. The Prosecutor concluded that as the prerequisites had not been fulfilled in these circumstances, no investigation would be opened. The Comoros filed an appeal of the Prosecutor’s ruling on the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla raid vessels. Finally, on November 30, 2017, this appeal was dismissed.

Initial investigations into Venezuela and Iraq were stopped for a while and then reopened. The Prosecutor released a letter in response to grievances he had received over the 2003 win of Iraq. 

He stated that the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction is restricted to the acts of citizens’ statutes parties and that its mission is to investigate “conduct during the conflict, not whether the decision to engage in armed conflict was legal.” he concluded that while there was cause for concern that a small number of war crimes had been perpetrated in Iraq, the crimes purportedly committed by citizens state parties did not seem to be serious enough to warrant an ICC investigation. But on May 13, 2014, the Prosecutor declared that initial investigations into the state of affairs in Iraq had been reopened in light of correspondence the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights received concerning purported war crimes committed by British authorities between 2003 and 2008.

The Office of the Prosecutor had 8874 communications on alleged offenses as of the end of September 2010. 4002 of the communications were rejected as “manifestly outside the jurisdiction of the Court” following an initial review.

The Court’s purpose is to supplement the nation’s current legal systems. It can only use its authority. National courts are unable or unwilling to look into or bring charges. It is anticipated that state parties will enact domestic law for the investigation and prosecution of offenses falling under the purview of the Court.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo

A military tribunal in Mbandaka sentenced policeman Botuli Itofo to twenty years in prison in February 2008 after finding him guilty of mass rape, a crime against humanity, and other “serious human rights violations” under ICC statutes. In March 2006, police who were sent to the area to restore order allegedly carried out a “punitive operation” in which over fifty women and girls claimed to have been raped.

Crimes against humans, as specified by the Rome Statute, may be prosecuted by German courts under the German Complementary Law even if they take place in a nation that has not ratified the statute and are, therefore, outside the court’s jurisdiction. Under the universal jurisdiction principle, that is.

Regarding the Andijan massacre, Uzbek activists filed a lawsuit against Interior Minister Zokirjon Almatov in December 2005. Almatov was receiving medical care in Germany at the time. The prosecutor said that since the Uzbek government would not assist in the collection of evidence, there were “non-existent” odds of a successful convict, so they declined to take any further action.

In Stuttgart, Germany, a trial against two accused FDLR members started in May 2011. Straton Musoni and Ignace Murwanashyaka, both nationals of Rwanda, are charged with 39 charges of war crimes and 26 counts of crimes against humanity that they allegedly perpetrated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In Germany, under the Völkerstrafgesetzbuch, which has been in effect since 2002, this is the first trial.

Where is the history of the court?

The Nuremberg Trials were the first international war crimes tribunal established by the Allies to bring high-ranking Nazi officials to justice following World War II. But it wasn’t until the 1990s that many governments came together in support of the concept of a permanent court to try and punish those responsible for the most terrible crimes in history to address war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the UN had previously established ad hoc international criminal tribunals; nevertheless, many experts in international law deemed these tribunals to be ineffective and insufficient as deterrents.

In 1989, Trinidad & Tobago asked a UN delegation to investigate the establishment of a permanent court. These initiatives gathered momentum in the next few years, particularly in Europe and Africa. The largest group at the ICC is the African bloc, notwithstanding recent strained relations between the court and some of the presidents of its thirty-three member nations. The European Union, which established legally a binding stance in favor of the ICC in 2011, is another ardent supporter of the court.

Which nations are represented on the court? The Rome Statute is ratified by 124 nations. Forty nations, including China, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iraq, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, never ratified the treaty despite fierce opposition from the US and its allies; the ICC recognized Palestine as a member in 2015.

The statute was signed by several additional people, but their legislatures never approved it. In addition to the United States, these also include Egypt, Iran, Israel, Russia, Sudan, and Syria. Following its ratification of the Rome Statute the previous year, Armenia became the ICC’s newest member in February 2024.

There are now two nations outside of the ICC. After the court decided to look into the government’s suppression of opposition protesters, Burundi left in 2017. In 2019, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte resigned, citing the sufficiency of domestic courts to uphold the rule of law, following the court’s investigation into his government’s drug campaign. In 2016, South Africa and the Gambia informed the UN that they planned to withdraw from the pact, but they later changed their minds due to political unrest and legal difficulties. Particularly South Africa’s leaders have voiced their displeasure with what they claim to be Western interests predominating when it comes to the application of international law.

How is the court run?

With its headquarters in The Hague, a city in the Netherlands home to numerous international organizations, the ICC also has field offices across other nations. The prosecutor’s office, which is run by British attorney Karim A.A. Khan, a former assistant secretary-general of the UN, has been in charge of the court’s investigation activity since 2021.

The court’s eighteen judges are chosen by the member states and come from various member nations. It mandates that its members work toward having a gender-balanced bench and that the judicial comprises members from each of the five UN regions. Prosecutors and judges are chosen for nine-year, nonrenewable tenure. The court’s administration is managed by the president, two vice presidents, and the registry, who are chosen from among the judges.

A political or military figurehead organizes or carries out a state’s use of force against the political independence, territorial integrity, or sovereignty of another state, or in any other way that isn’t compliant with the UN Charter.

There are three ways in which the court can begin an investigation into potential crimes: either a member state may refer to the prosecutor a situation occurring anywhere in the world as long as it falls under the court’s jurisdiction, or the UN Security Council may refer a situation occurring anywhere in the world; or the prosecutor may, with the consent of judges sitting in the pretrial chamber of the ICC, begin an investigation “on one’s initiative.” If the claimed violations include people from non-member states, the court may look into them.

The great majority of the ICC’s $187 million annual budget for 2024 will come from its member states. The same formula used by the UN to calculate dues—which generally correlate to the size of each member state’s economy—is used to calculate contributions. The countries that contributed the most in 2022 were the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Japan. Several nations, most notably Venezuela, Brazil, and Argentina, owe millions of dollars in arrears. Although it hasn’t done so before, the UN General Assembly has the authority to authorize additional funds for cases that the Security Council refers to the court. Voluntary contributions are also accepted from certain countries and international organizations. 

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has come under fire from certain analysts who claim it is overly costly and has not done enough to prosecute certain crimes, like gender-based violence. Some argue that the court’s institutional capacity is limited and that its cost-effectiveness cannot be determined only by the volume of cases it hears or convictions it obtains. 

Which cases and investigations have the ICC started?

The majority of the almost fifty people that the ICC has indicted are citizens of African nations. In The Hague, twenty-one individuals have been imprisoned; ten have been found guilty of crimes; and four have been found not guilty.