Author Description

The history of the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) spans over more than a century. While efforts to create a global criminal court can be traced back to the early 19th century, the story began in earnest in 1872 with Gustav Moynier - one of the founders of the International Committee of the Red Cross - who proposed a permanent court in response to the crimes of the Franco-Prussian War. In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Genocide Convention in which it called for criminals to be tried "by such international penal tribunals as may have jurisdiction." In June 1989, motivated in part by an effort to combat drug trafficking, Trinidad and Tobago resurrected a pre-existing proposal for the establishment of an international criminal court and the UN General Assembly asked that the International Law Commission resume its work on drafting a statute. The conflicts in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia, as well as in Rwanda, in the early 1990s led the UN Security Council to establish two separate temporary ad hoc tribunals to hold individuals accountable for those atrocities, further highlighting the need for a permanent international criminal court. The "road to Rome" was a long and often contentious one. Through a series of drafts, committees, negotiations, and other developments, the ICC was eventually established. This book describes the history of the ICC and presents the most important legal documents that led to the creation of this remarkable institution.