PRIORITISATION OF SITUATIONS AND CASES UNDER THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT
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Keywords:
situation, case, prioritization, selection, sufficient gravity, gravity threshold, Prosecutor, interest of justice, impartiality, admissibility, jurisdictionAbstract
The main objective of the International Criminal Court is to end impunity for perpetrators of crimes concerning the international community as a whole. The temporal, personal, territorial and subject matter jurisdiction of the court lays out the mandate within which it can try situations and cases. As a single court which works on the concept of complementarity, it cannot pursue all situations. Therefore, selection and prioritization of situations becomes a necessary evil. The prosecutor enjoys discretion in selecting situations as well as cases within situations. Lack of transparency has led the Prosecutor to face criticism for his selection policy. The selection policy in the initial years centered on the African continent and high level perpetrators which was seen as biased by many. Since then the court has worked to improve its approach to selection by defining criteria and bringing in parameters which set guidelines for the same. An attempt has been made in this paper to analyse the 2016 guidelines on prioritization of cases by the prosecutor by bringing out the positives as well as the negatives of the policy.
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