Talk:Rome Statute

outdated info
The number of ratifications mentioned in the infobox does not seem to be up-to-date (date was 2013), as other articles on this site as well as specific sections in this article have numbers higher than 107 state parties, where this infobox says only 60. I am not certain about these numbers, so I hope someone other than myself could make an edit to remedy this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.109.80.245 (talk) 15:43, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Jurisdiction
Removed from article: "The ICC's advocates assert that the Rome Statute provides the ICC with universal jurisdiction, particularly over genocide and crimes against humanity. These advocates consider the treaty to constitute an international law, hence the the use of the term statute in the treaty's name.

Critics of the Rome Statute, notably China and the United States, adamantly deny its claim of universal jurisdiction."

This seems to be incorrect. The ICC only has jurisdiction over states that sign the Rome Statute and only if the specified crimes occur after the state signed the treaty. --rmhermen

I disagree. A US citizen could still come before the court where he or she is alleged to have committed a crime within the jurisdiction of the Court on the territory of a State which is a party to the Statute of the Court or which accepts the exercise of the jurisdiction of the Court specifically with respect to the crime in question.

Consent of either the territorial state or the state of nationality is a sufficient “precondition” for the Court to exercise its jurisdiction. -EJL


 * Universal jurisdiction with respect to the ICC, as i understand it, relates to the fact that a Party State can apply its jurisdiction over any international criminal offence, regardless of whether or not that crime has been committed by or against a citizen of that Party State, so long as the offender was a citizen of a State which is a party to the ICC, and the crime was committed prior to the activation of the court. *rolls over dead*

--202.164.195.56 12:40, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The ICC does indeed assert universal jurisdiction. If Omar Al-Bashir landed in France, he would be turned over the ICC notwithstanding Sudan's current status as a non-signatory.Asasa64 (talk) 12:49, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

POV tag
My concern is that the article clearly takes a favorable view of the ICC, and thus deserves a POV tag. I'll see what I can do to improve it.Timothy Usher 23:57, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Presidential Candidates
The article says "However, the statute does enjoy some support in the United States. Democratic Party 2008 United States Presidential candidates John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich have stated their intent to re-sign the statute and promote its ratification if elected." This is an irrelevant inclusion because even if elected President, any new presidential treaty signing is irrelevant. Only the US Senate can ratify a treaty and it could do so today - if it wishes. Presidents have nothing to do with treaty ratification, and presidential canidates have less than nothing. Raggz (talk) 01:36, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not "nothing". If Kucinich is elected President the Moon is made of green cheese, but if Edwards gets in his position would be significant, and even as merely a major candidate, his position is notable, if dimwitted. Andyvphil (talk) 13:14, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Its clearly relevant tp the overall political environment for the court in the US. AndrewRT(Talk) 13:35, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I accept that it is relevant to the political environment. Ratification would however require a constitutional amendment, a process of one or two decades. I do not believe that there is any movement whatever toward ratification or amending the constitution. I however accept the arguments for inclusion. Raggz (talk) 07:04, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:ICC.gif
Image:ICC.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 18:53, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Law of Treaties
The article's text is not supported by the two citations used for support:

^ The 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Article 18. Accessed 2007-01-23. ^ U.S. Announces Intent Not to Ratify International Criminal Court Treaty, American Society of International Law, 2002-05-01, accessed on 2007-01-23


 * The first citation Art. 2(a) states "(a) “treaty” means an international agreement concluded between States in written form and governed by international law, whether embodied in a single instrument or in two or more related instruments and whatever its particular designation..." Read law of treaties, the Statute is not a treaty between states. This citation does not support the text.


 * The second states that the US generally is bound by this treaty, even though it has never ratified it, under customary law. While this reference makes it clear that the treaty is to some degree within the customary law of the US, it does not support the claim that the treaty itself applies in any context except between states. The Statute is not a treaty between states. See law of treaties, which states "The scope of the Convention is limited. It applies only to treaties concluded between states, so it does not cover agreements between states and international organizations or between international organizations themselves.[1][2]. I recommend first editing the law of treaties article if it is in error, before attempting further to claim that the law of treaties has relevance to the Statute..

Because the claim is unsupported by the citations, it requires deletion. Raggz (talk) 07:05, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Raggz, this is absolute nonsense. The Rome Statute is a treaty between states.  The law of treaties applies.  You will not find a single person who understands international law who thinks otherwise.  As usual, you're just making this shit up as you go along.  Sideshow Bob Roberts (talk) 16:39, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * If you are correct, you will find many reliable sources. Offer just one, please? We do not have Consensus for you to modify without reliable sources. Raggz (talk) 03:45, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Raggz, we both know the claim that "the Statute is not a treaty between states" is just something you made up. The reason I know this is because you could not have read it anywhere.  As I said, nobody who understands international law would ever say this.  You will not find a single source that agrees with you.
 * The Rome Statute is clearly a "treaty between states". Article 125 of the Statute makes it clear that only states can become party to the agreement.  And if you look at the list of participants, you'll notice that they're all states.  The European Union can't become a party to the treaty, nor can the United Nations or Amnesty International, because the treaty is only open to states.  It's a treaty between states.
 * If you'd bothered to do five minutes of research, you would've realised that your claim that the law of treaties does not apply is ridiculous. Instead, as usual, you chose to make a crazy claim, delete relevant material for a patently false reason, and then demand that other editors take the time to disprove your crazy theory — even though you know damn well that it's just something you made up and you don't have a single source to support your theory.
 * As I've said before, those of us who contribute to these articles have better things to do than repeatedly explain the basics of international law to someone who has no interest in the facts. Sideshow Bob Roberts (talk) 23:56, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Image Clarification
The color scheme of the image needs to be clarified in the caption. Otherwise nobody has any clue what green, orange, and gray mean. Wikipediarul e s 2221 00:38, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Was thinking the same thing. Can someone please clarify this? This page is linked on the main page right now for christ sake...99.54.189.90 (talk) 06:21, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
 * What the hell do you think 'green' could mean other than 'signed and ratified'? 89.50.29.145 (talk) 13:49, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

History
Added some words in the history section (translated from Italian) and the copyediting tag, as I think a clean up and uniform styles could be a good idea. There are a few sentences that sound not as smooth as in the Italian version. --Vale new (talk) 23:27, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Ecocide
I removed the reference to the proposed inclusion of ecocide, because it is neither in the 1994 ILC draft (to be found here). Neither was it mentioned during the conference which established the Statute, nor in the commissions that came before it (minutes of those to be found here). There is only one mention by a Libyan plenopotary who mentions 'in addition to so-called aggression and so-called terrorism, the Court might deal with ... aggression against the environment and other threats' (Vol I, para 82). He, however, does not hint at any discussion that was going on at the conference.

There is, however, a reference to 'wilful and severe damage to the environment' as an proposed international crime in the 1991 ILC Draft Code of Crimes against the Peace and Security of Mankind (it proposed 12 international crimes) (to be found here. It probably did not survive the second reading of 1994 (ILC Yearbook 1994, Vol II, Part I) and was not included in the 1996 draft of crimes. Now the reason I'm writing this part is because these ILC draft crimes were the basis on which the Special-Rapporteur would make a report which was copied by the Commission tasked with writing a draft Statute. The Special-Rapporteur deemed it necessary to drop all international crimes in his report whose standing in international law was doubtful "ecocide" was among them (for a short history on the interplay between both ILC drafts see here.)

However as must be clear by now. Ecocide was never considered for inclusion in the 1998 Rome Statute. Neither was it cut in the 'negotiations' of said Statute. It simply did not make those negotiations. Hence, the cited article clearly got its facts wrong.Perudotes (talk) 23:55, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

Missing source
The following text does not show up in the Code editing mode and cannot be processed by Auto-translator: "As of November 2019, 123 states[20] are parties to the Statute of the Court, including all the countries of South America, nearly all of Europe, most of Oceania and roughly half of Africa.[2][21] Burundi and the Philippines were member states, but later withdrew effective 27 October 2017[22] and 17 March 2019,[23] respectively.[2][21] A further 31 countries[20] have signed but not ratified the Rome Statute.[2][21] The law of treaties obliges these states to refrain from 'acts which would defeat the object and purpose' of the treaty until they declare they do not intend to become a party to the treaty.[24] Four signatory states—Israel,[25] Sudan,[26] the United States[27][28] and Russia[29]—have informed the UN Secretary General that they no longer intend to become states parties and, as such, have no legal obligations arising from their signature of the Statute.[2][21]" What the reason might be? Axlesaery (talk) 03:29, 29 March 2023 (UTC)


 * It must be a transclusion, though I'm not sure how you set one up in that particular manner. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:35, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Actually I did nothing with the text, I only tried to translate using Auto translation tool. The latter just does not see this particular part of the text. Question is how to go round this issue, i.e to make the text visible? 09:18, 30 March 2023 (UTC) Axlesaery (talk) 09:18, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Armenia
Armenia has moved to ratify the Statute: 331dot (talk) 13:19, 3 October 2023 (UTC)