Tagged: ratification

The State of Palestine Ratifies Rome Statute and Accepts the Court’s Jurisdiction

In a controversial move, the State of Palestine became the 123rd State Party to the Rome Statute when it deposited its instruments of accession to the UN. According to the depositary notification, the action was effected on January 2, 2015 and the Rome Statute will enter into force for the State of Palestine on April 1, 2015 in accordance with Article 126(2).

In the meantime, however, the State of Palestine filed Article 12(3) declaration accepting the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction

for the purpose of identifying, prosecuting and judging authors and accomplices of crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court committed in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, since June 13, 2014.

Unlike the other Article 12(3) declarations filed with the Court so far (as previously discussed here, here, and here), the Palestinian one does not identify a specific time frame within which the Court is entitled to exercise its jurisdiction. On the contrary, it specifically articulates that it “shall be valid for an unspecified period of time,” ensuring that the Court can exercise its jurisdiction within Palestinian territory until the Rome Statute enters into force on April 1, 2015. At that point, Article 12(3) declaration is likely to have little or no importance since the Rome Statute, as the later-in-time instrument, will be in force.

Another State Ratifies Crime of Aggression Amendments

To follow up on our previous post, the International Criminal Court (ICC) reports in its December 8, 2014 press release that on December 5, 2014, another state, Georgia, deposited the instrument of ratification of the 2010 amendments to the Rome Statute on the crime of aggression. This ratification brings the number of ratifications of the crime of aggression amendments to a total of twenty so far. The press release further notes that Georgia “is the seventh country from the Eastern European Group to have ratified this set of amendments,” following Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

The crime of aggression was included in the Rome Statute in 1998 but the definition of the crime and the process by which the Court can exercise jurisdiction over this crime was not articulated until the 2010 Review Conference in Kampala, Uganda. These amendments are set to go in effect on January 1, 2017 and the Court will be able to exercise jurisdiction over the crime of aggression once thirty States Parties have ratified the amendments.

Article 8 bis (1) articulates the definition of crime of aggression as

the planning, preparation, initiation or execution, by a person in a position effectively to exercise control over or to direct the political or military action of a State, of an act of aggression which, by its character, gravity and scale, constitutes a manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations.

Article 8 bis (2) further states that act of aggression means

the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations.

The definition directly draws on the principles articulated in and established by the UN Charter, namely Article 2(4). In light of the continuous situation in Ukraine and Crimea, can we expect more ratifications soon?

Three More Countries Ratify Amendments to the Rome Statute on the Crime of Aggression

In a 9/29/14 press release, the President of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute announced that Latvia, Poland, and Spain deposited their respective instruments of ratification of the 2010 amendments to the Rome Statute on the crime of aggression. Article 5 of the Rome Statute enumerates the crimes within the subject matter jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Although article 5(d) always listed the crime of aggression as one of the crimes within the Court’s jurisdiction (since 1998), it was not until the June 2010 Review Conference of the Rome Statute, that article 8 bis (Crime of Aggression) was articulated, amending so the Rome Statute. Article 8 bis and all other amendments related to the crime of aggression were inserted in the Rome Statute by resolution RC/Res. 6 of 11 June 2010. 

Further, as stated in article 15 bis (2), “[t]he Court may exercise jurisdiction only with respect to crimes of aggression committed one year after the ratification or acceptance of the amendments by thirty States Parties,” leaving States Parties with ample time to decide whether to ratify the amendments or not. Lichtenstein became the first State Party to ratify the crime of aggression amendments on 8 May 2012, followed by Samoa, Trinidad & Tobago, and most recently Latvia, Poland, and Spain. There are so far 18 States Parties that have ratified or accepted the amendments on the crime of aggression as articulated during the 2010 Review Conference held in Kampala, Uganda.

The crime of aggression amendments were not the only amendments achieved during the 2010 review conference. Additionally, as stated in resolution RC/Res. 5 of 10 June 2010, a set of amendments pertaining to article 8 of the Rome Statute were also adopted. These amendments addressed “the characterization of the use of certain weapons during non-international armed conflict as war crimes.” There are so far 21 States Parties that have ratified or accepted these amendments pertaining to article 8, also including Latvia, Poland, and Spain.