An Introduction To The International Criminal Court - Institute for ...

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Jurisdiction and admissibility
One of the most delicate issues in the creation of the International Criminal
Court was the determination of its territorial and personal jurisdiction.
Although there were useful models for many aspects of international justice,
never before had the international community attempted to create a
court with such general scope and application. The Nuremberg Tribunal had
exercised jurisdiction ‘to try and punish persons who, acting in the interests
of the European Axis countries, whether as individuals or as members
of organizations’ had committed one of the crimes within the Tribunal’s
subject-matter jurisdiction. 1 Thus, its jurisdiction was personal in nature;
defendants had to have acted in the interests of the European Axis countries.
The jurisdiction of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former
Yugoslavia is confined to crimes committed on the territory of the former
Yugoslavia, subsequent to 1991. 2 The jurisdiction is therefore territorial in
nature. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has jurisdiction
over crimes committed in Rwanda during 1994, and over crimes committed
by Rwandan nationals in neighbouring countries in the same period. 3
Accordingly, its jurisdiction is both territorial and personal.
The basic difference with these precedents is that the International Criminal
Court is being created with the consent of those who will themselves
be subject to its jurisdiction. They have agreed that it is crimes committed
on their territory, or by their nationals, that may be prosecuted. These are
the fundamentals of the Court’s jurisdiction. The jurisdiction that the international
community has accepted for its new Court is narrower than the
jurisdiction that individual States are entitled to exercise with respect to the
1 Agreement for the Prosecution and Punishment of Major War Criminals of the European Axis,
and Establishing the Charter of the International Military Tribunal (IMT), Annex, (1951) 82
UNTS 279, Art. 6.
2 Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, UN Doc. S/RES/827,
Annex.
3 Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, UN Doc. S/RES/955, Annex.
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