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ICC

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is a permanent international judicial tribunal headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands, founded via the 1998 Rome Statute to end impunity for mass atrocities. Unlike the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which settles legal disputes between sovereign nations. The ICC holds individuals criminally responsible for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes of aggression. Because major global powers, including the United States, Russia, China, and India, are not parties to the Rome Statute and the court lacks its own police force, the ICC relies entirely on member states to execute arrest warrants, enforce asset freezes, and defend its judicial independence against escalating diplomatic defections and financial sanctions.

Quick facts about ICC

  1. It is the world's first and only permanent intergovernmental judicial tribunal established to investigate, prosecute, and try individuals accused of the gravest international crimes: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression.
  2. It was created under the Rome Statute, adopted on July 17, 1998, by 120 states and formally entering into force on July 1, 2002, operating independently of the United Nations from its permanent headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands.
  3. It operates strictly as a "court of last resort" under the principle of complementarity, meaning it can only exercise jurisdiction when national judicial systems are genuinely unwilling or unable to prosecute perpetrators, and it is barred from conducting trials in absentia.
  4. They issued landmark arrest warrants against sitting and former state leaders, including Sudan's Omar al-Bashir (2009), Russia's Vladimir Putin (2023), Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant (November 2024), and four senior Taliban leaders including Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada (unsealed on October 5, 2026) while proceeding with the historic trial of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, scheduled to open on November 30, 2026.
  5. They suffered unprecedented institutional and geopolitical crises in 2026, marked by the Assembly of States Parties voting on July 24, 2026, to remove Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan following a sexual misconduct investigation, simultaneous U.S. economic sanctions imposed by the Trump administration against President Tomoko Akane, 13 judges and prosecutors, and the Court itself in October 2026, and a wave of Rome Statute withdrawal notifications filed by Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Venezuela, Chad, and Nauru.

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Cyril RamaphosaCyril Ramaphosa5th President of South Africa

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