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Criminal Courts
ICJ International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice is the primary judicial organ of the United Nations.
Established in 1945 by the United Nations Charter, the Court began work in 1946
as the successor to the Permanent Court of International Justice. The Statute of
the International Court of Justice, similar to that of its predecessor, is the main
constitutional document authorising and regulating the Court. The ICJ is based in
the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands, and shares the building with the Hague
Academy of International Law, a private centre for the study of international law.
Several of the Court’s current judges are either alumni or former faculty members
of the Academy. Its purpose is to adjudicate disputes among states. The court has
heard cases related to war crimes, illegal state interference and ethnic cleansing,
among others, and continues to hear cases.
ICC or ICCt International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court was established as a permanent tribunal to prosecute
individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime
of aggression, although it cannot currently exercise jurisdiction over the crime of
aggression. It came into being on July 1, 2002, the day its founding treaty – the
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court – was signed, and only has the
power to prosecute crimes committed on or after that date.
As of November 2008, the Court has 108 member states. Suriname and the Cook
Islands joined as state parties on October 1, 2008. A further 40 countries have
signed but not yet ratified the Rome Statute. A number of states, however, including
China, India and the USA, are critical of the Court and have not yet joined.
Generally speaking, the Court may only exercise jurisdiction in cases where the
accused is a national of a state party, the alleged crime took place on the territory
of a state party, or when a situation is referred to the Court by the United Nations
Security Council. The Court is designed to complement existing national judicial
systems: it only has judicial power when national courts are unwilling or unable to
investigate or prosecute such crimes. The responsibility to investigate and punish
crimes, therefore, lies first and foremost in the hands of the individual states.
To date, the Court has opened investigations into four situations: Northern Uganda,
the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic and Darfur. It
has issued public arrest warrants for twelve people, six of whom remain free, two
have died and four are in custody. The Court’s first trial, that of Congolese militia
leader Thomas Lubanga, was due to begin on June 23, 2008 but was halted on
June 13 when judges ruled that the Prosecutor’s refusal to disclose potentially
exculpatory material had breached Lubanga’s right to a fair trial.
The official seat of the Court is in The Hague, Netherlands, but its proceedings may
take place anywhere. The ICC is sometimes referred to as a “world court”; it should
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