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International Human Rights Institutions, Tribunals, and Courts pp 355–376Cite as

The International Criminal Court between Human Rights and Realpolitik

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Part of the book series: International Human Rights ((IHR))

Abstract

This chapter provides a general overview on the law and practice of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The introductive section presents an account of the early modern attempts to establish a permanent international criminal tribunal. Section two describes the structure of the Court and the role of its different organs. The third section examines the main legal features of the crimes defined in the Rome Statute, that is, genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. Section four describes the jurisdiction of the Court and its trigger mechanisms. Section five, after outlining the notion of complementarity, debates the issues of admissibility of situation and cases before the Court itself. Section six places into question whether and to what extent the Court can be considered a human rights institution, taking into account the different, complex, and sometimes conflicting goals declared in the Statute and conceptualized by the scholarship. It also offers an overview of the main problems surrounding role and practice of the ICC, with a focus on the Court’s unwillingness or inability to investigate and sanction serious violations committed by agents of powerful states in the international arena.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

    Luigi Daniele

  2. University of the Studies of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy

    Luigi Daniele

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  1. Luigi Daniele
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Correspondence to Luigi Daniele .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Law, University of Graz, Graz, Austria

    Gerd Oberleitner

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Daniele, L. (2018). The International Criminal Court between Human Rights and Realpolitik. In: Oberleitner, G. (eds) International Human Rights Institutions, Tribunals, and Courts. International Human Rights. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5206-4_13

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