International Criminal Court

The establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been a landmark in the history of international law and one of the most important steps in matters of peace enforcement since the end of the second world war. ELSA has been involved in the process of the establishment of this world court since 1998. In that year, the statute of the ICC (the “Rome Statute”) was adopted at the Rome Diplomatic Conference. Thanks to its special consultative status with UNECOSOC, ELSA delegates had the opportunity to participate in the negotiations on the final text of the Rome Statute. ELSA helped to create the Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC), a network of over 1.000 non-governmental organisations involved in the establishment of the ICC, and soon became a member of its steering committee (now consultative committee).

Under the co-ordination of CICC, ELSA and other non-governmental organisations observed the negotiations in Rome. The task of the ELSA delegates was to report to CICC on new developments in the course of the negotiations, to strategize together and to be a partner for critical dialogue for government representatives. The work of the ELSA delegations led to a handbook on the ICC, which was one of the first publications on the International Criminal Court.

After the Rome Conference, the negotiations continued in the so-called “Preparatory Commission” (1999-2002) which was charged with the task to discuss certain issues on which agreement had not been reached in Rome (e.g. the crime of aggression) and to develop some instruments that will become crucial for the functioning of the Court (e.g. the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly of States Parties, the Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of the Court, the Rules for the Election of the Judges and the Prosecutor, Financial Rules and Regulations etc.). Again, the negotiations were closely followed by ELSA delegates. With two research projects on the nomination and election of judges, ELSA made an academic contribution to the work of the Prepartory Commission.

In 2002, the Rome Statute entered into force after having been ratified by more than 60 states, and the Court became a reality. Since then, ELSA has continued its work in the “Assembly of States Parties”, the control organ of the ICC, which meets at least once a year. Thus, several generations of ELSA delegates from all over Europe have contributed to the creation of a fair and independent International Criminal Court. They were selected on the basis of academic performance and ELSA experience by means of an ambitious international application procedure.

In July 2002, a new research group was set up by some of the ELSA delegates to the ICC Preparatory Commissions: ELSA’s project on ICC national implementation legislation (ELSA PINIL). It aims at providing concise and up-to-date information on the status of implementation of the Rome Statute in each European country. More than two dozens of students and young professionals from various countries in Western as well as Eastern Europe were involved in this project which ended in 2005.

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