Rome Statute

Member State Member State where the treaty has not entered into force States parties that left Signed, not ratified Signed, subsequently rejected Not signatory

The Rome Statute is the founding instrument of the International Criminal Court. It was adopted in the city of Rome, Italy, on July 17, 1998, during the United Nations Plenipotentiary Diplomatic Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court.

During the conference, the United States, Israel and China made common cause against it. Despite this, both Israel and the United States signed but did not ratify the Treaty. In fact, the signing by the US side was made by President Bill Clinton just one day before leaving power to George W. Bush.

Despite the international experience in signing multilateral treaties, the statute itself set a high quorum for its entry into force (60 countries). However, the process was extremely rapid, starting with Senegal until ten countries together deposited the instrument of ratification with the General Secretariat of the United Nations on April 11, 2002. The Statute entered into force on July 1, 2002. As of July 2020, the convention has 183 signatories and 123 ratifications.

Structure

The Statute is structured as follows:

• Preamble
• Part I: Establishment of the Court (arts. 1-4)
• Part II: Competition, admissibility and applicable law (5-21)
• Part III: General principles of criminal law (22-33)
• Part IV: The composition and administration of the court (34-52)
• Part V: Investigation and prosecution (53-61)
• Part VI: From trial (62-76)
• Part VII: Sentences (77-80)
• Part VIII: Appeal and review (81-85)
• Part IX: International cooperation and judicial assistance (86-105)
• Part X: Execution of sentence (103-111).
• Part XI: Assembly of States Parties (112)
• Part XII: Funding (113-118)
• Part XIII: Final clauses (119-128)