Where is R2P grounded in international law? Anne-Marie Judson A ...

towards a group as such, required by Article II of the Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”.
These two opinions show firstly that the ICJ is willing to define and express opinions
on the crime of genocide, secondly it also shows that it is well within their jurisdiction,
thirdly it shows that the crime of genocide is considered a violation of customary law.
Lastly it shows that the crime of genocide is applicable to all states, not only to those
that are a signatory to the convention, once again reinforcing paragraph 138 of the
World Summit outcome document that states “Each individual Member State has the
responsibility to protect its population from genocide (…) This responsibility entails
the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement through appropriate and
necessary means”.
Article 6 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (2002) describes the
meaning of genocide as any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy,
in whole or in part, a national, racial or religious group; including killing members of
the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group,
deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures on the group intended to
prevent births or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. The
jurisdiction of the Court includes exercising jurisdiction where one or more of the
crimes ‘appear’ to have been committed. The prosecutor may initiate investigation
proprio motu on the basis that information on a crime is within the jurisdiction of the
court. When a crime is seen to have been committed parties to the convention may
refer the situation to the Security Council acting under the provisions of the Charter
of the United Nations, under Chapter VII.
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (2002) had 141 parties and 38
signatories in 2011. Equally important is the fact that there are 45 non-signatories, the
majority of whom are from the Asia Pacific region (23), then Africa (7), Europe (6), the
Middle East and North Africa (5) and the Americas (5). The universal scope of the
statute is limited by the lack of signatory participants. 228 Most if not all the
228 Non-­‐signatories to the statute include (Africa) Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Mauritania,
Rwanda, Somalia, Swaziland, Togo, (Americas) Cuba, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Nicaragua,
(Asia & Pacific) Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, China, India, Indonesia, Kiribati, Korea, Democratic
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