PART 2. Jurisdiction, admissibility and applicable law

• Author: International Criminal Court
• Pages: 3-19

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Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

PART 2.

JURISDICTION, ADMISSIBILITY AND APPLICABLE LAW

Article 51

Crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court

The jurisdiction of the Court shall be limited to the most serious crimes of concern to

the international community as a whole. The Court has jurisdiction in accordance with

this Statute with respect to the following crimes:

(a) The crime of genocide;

(b) Crimes against humanity;

(c) War crimes;

(d) The crime of aggression.

Article 6

Genocide

For the purpose of this Statute, “genocide” means any of the following acts committed

with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,

as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inf‌licting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about

its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Article 7

Crimes against humanity

1. For the purpose of this Statute, “crime against humanity” means any of the following

acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any

civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:

(a) Murder;

(b) Extermination;

(c) Enslavement;

(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population;

1 Paragraph 2 of a rticle 5 (“T he Court sha ll exercise j urisdic tion over the c rime of aggr ession once a prov ision is adopted

in accordanc e with arti cles 121 and 123 def‌i ning the cr ime and sett ing out the condit ions under whic h the Court sha ll

exercise ju risdict ion with respe ct to this cr ime. Such a provi sion shall be co nsistent wit h the relevant pr ovisions of t he

Charter o f the United Nations .”) was deleted in accord ance with RC/R es.6, annex I, of 11 Ju ne 2010.

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Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of

fundamental rules of international law;

(f) Torture;

(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced

sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;

(h) Persecution against any identif‌iable group or collectivity on political, racial,

national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as def‌ined in paragraph 3, or other

grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international

law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime

within the jurisdiction of the Court;

(i) Enforced disappearance of persons;

(j) The crime of apartheid;

(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great

suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.

2. For the purpose of paragraph 1:

(a) “Attack directed against any civilian population” means a course of conduct

involving the multiple commission of acts referred to in paragraph 1 against any

civilian population, pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational

policy to commit such attack;

(b) “Extermination” includes the intentional inf‌liction of conditions of life,

inter alia the deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring

about the destruction of part of a population;

(c) “Enslavement” means the exercise of any or all of the powers attaching to the

right of ownership over a person and includes the exercise of such power in

the course of traff‌icking in persons, in particular women and children;

(d) “Deportation or forcible transfer of population” means forced displacement

of the persons concerned by expulsion or other coercive acts from the

area in which they are lawfully present, without grounds permitted under

international law;

(e) “Torture” means the intentional inf‌liction of severe pain or suffering, whether

physical or mental, upon a person in the custody or under the control of the

accused; except that torture shall not include pain or suffering arising only

from, inherent in or incidental to, lawful sanctions;

(f) “Forced pregnancy” means the unlawful conf‌inement of a woman forcibly

made pregnant, with the intent of affecting the ethnic composition of any

population or carrying out other grave violations of international law. This

def‌inition shall not in any way be interpreted as affecting national laws

relating to pregnancy;

(g) “Persecution” means the intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental

rights contrary to international law by reason of the identity of the group or

collectivity;