International Criminal Court

The International Criminal Court is a permanent, independent international tribunal established to investigate and prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. It was created by the Rome Statute, a multilateral treaty adopted in 1998 that entered into force on July 1, 2002, and it is headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands. The ICC acts as a court of last resort, exercising jurisdiction only when national courts are unwilling or unable to prosecute qualifying crimes, a principle known as complementarity, through a structure including the Presidency, Judicial Divisions, an independent Office of the Prosecutor, and a Registry. Its jurisdiction is limited to states parties to the Rome Statute and situations referred by the UN Security Council; several major powers, including the United States, Russia, and China, are not parties, which has led to disputes over the Court's authority to issue arrest warrants against their nationals or leaders, and some African Union member states have at times criticized the Court for disproportionately targeting African leaders. The ICC is distinct from the International Court of Justice: the ICJ hears disputes between states and cannot try individuals, while the ICC prosecutes individuals for crimes; the ICC did not replace the ICJ, the UN's own judicial organ, when it was created.