The International Criminal Court : Cour pénale internationale : histoire et rôle

On 11 April 2002, 10 countries ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the United Nations (UN) treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC) - an international court of last resort. This brought the total number of ratifications to more than 60, triggering the entry into force of the statute on 1 July 2002. Canada was an early advocate of this historic international tribunal. In recent years, a number of reservations have been expressed by members of the international community with respect to the Court. One prominent early critic has been the United States, which, despite having signed the statute in 2000, officially renounced its legal obligations to the ICC in May 2002. This paper will provide an overview of the development of international criminal law by tracing the historical path to the 1998 United Nations conference in Rome. It then reviews the Rome Statute and the role and functioning of the ICC itself, while providing some discussion of the criticisms facing the court today.