The Rome Statute
The treaty that created the ICC, how it was negotiated, and the compromises that shaped the Court.
From Nuremberg to Rome
The idea of a permanent international criminal court dates back to the aftermath of World War II. The Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals established the principle that individuals could be held criminally responsible for the worst international crimes, but they were ad hoc tribunals created by the victors. For decades, proposals for a permanent court went nowhere, blocked by Cold War politics.
The breakthrough came in the 1990s, when the atrocities in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda led the Security Council to create the ICTY (1993) and ICTR (1994). These tribunals demonstrated that international criminal justice was possible but also highlighted the limitations of ad hoc approaches: they were expensive, slow, and dependent on Security Council politics. In 1998, 160 countries gathered in Rome to negotiate a treaty for a permanent court.
