Dan Sarooshi

Aspects of the relationship between the International Criminal Court and the United Nations

The conclusion and adoption of the Statute of a permanent International Criminal Court (hereafter ‘the Statute’) in Rome in July 1998 represented a turning point in the enforcement of legal norms regulating armed conflict. The establishment and functioning of the UN International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda represented an important first step in this area, and the work of these tribunals will prove of considerable importance to the interpretation and application by the ICC of the body of substantive law that it will apply. However, the separate treaty basis of establishment of the ICC means that it is clearly not part of the UN Organization which consists of the six principal organs specified in Article 7(1) of the Charter and their subsidiary organs. As such there is a very clear distinction in institutional terms between the ICC and the ICTY/ICTR that were both established by the UN Security Council as UN subsidiary organs pursuant to Chapter VII of the Charter. This differing basis of establishment raises the key issue of the nature of the relationship between the ICC and the UN.

International Criminal Justice: an Institutional Future?

The relationship between the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Security Council is important in order for international criminal justice to have an institutional future since the ICC needs to rely on the Council to ensure that it can operate effectively in practice: to get important cases as a result of Security Council referrals and to ensure that its decisions are complied with by States. This chapter focuses on the two main areas of this relationship: the referral by the Security Council of cases to the ICC and the problem of the enforcement of ICC decisions. Several of the issues contained in these areas are applied to consider the important first referral of a situation by the Security Council to the ICC in relation to Darfur. The contribution of the ICC is not limited to prosecuting crimes of international concern, but also includes a contribution to the establishment of peace. Keywords: Darfur; establishment of peace; International Criminal Court (ICC); international criminal justice; UN Security Council