© 2004 by Oxford University Press
The International Criminal Court
1 Former Judge of the ICTY
The adoption of the Statute of the International Criminal Court in Rome on 17 July 1998 opened up new hopes and raised new challenges for international criminal justice. Unlike the Statutes of the ad hoc Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, which were adopted by resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, the Statute of the International Criminal Court was negotiated for years and eventually adopted as a treaty. During these negotiations, many compromises were made to render the Statute acceptable to the largest possible number of states. In particular, the powers of judges were strongly curtailed to assuage the fears of a number of states that the Court could infringe upon their sovereignty. The results of the many restrictions placed upon the judges by the Court’s Statute, by the rules of procedure and evidence and by the Elements of Crimes will be to preclude significantly the necessary judicial development of the law and to restrict the judges substantially to a mechanical function. These limitations appear to demonstrate a certain mistrust by various States in the independence of international criminal courts, and they raise a number of questions concerning the ability of the International Criminal Court to function efficiently as a court of law and the ability of its judges to fulfil their mandate