Building the Rome Statute: 1998

Abstract

In 1998, the complexity of the International Criminal Court discourse grew exponentially. Prior to that time, relatively few diplomats, NGO activists, and legal scholars were engaged in the ongoing debates about whether or not to establish an ICC and how to go about doing so. One crucial consequence of the approach of the Rome conference scheduled for June 1998 was that many more people began to discuss and take positions on the ICC issue. For the first time, the developments in the ICC negotiations began to be covered regularly by major newspapers. Consequently, it became much more difficult for any single participant in the ICC discourse to remain fully aware of the positions being taken by all of the other interlocutors in the ICC debate. Also, the supporters of the ICC project quickly realized that delicate compromises worked out in the early stages of the negotiations could become vulnerable to collapse as more individuals, generally with less expertise in the field of international criminal law, began to examine the issues at stake in the proposed ICC statute.

An International Criminal Court is hereby established. It shall be a permanent institution and shall have the power to exercise its jurisdiction over persons for the most serious crimes of international concern …

—Article 1, The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, adopted July 17, 1998