THE JURISDICTION OF INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNALS AND AN EVALUATION OF ITS LEGITIMACY : A Focus on ICC and Its Impact on International Law

Abstract

This essay aims to re-examine the jurisdiction of the international criminal tribunals with the reference of sophisticated International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the focus of relatively rudimentary ICC. The main structure of this essay is the following: Chapter 2 of this essay defines the key terms which are vital to understand the controversies surrounding the ICC, it starts with the legal definition of the word “jurisdiction” and tries to apply the term in its strictest sense as I move on my arguments towards the final conclusions. Subsequently, I shall define the terms “legality” and “legitimacy” and draw a distinction between them. This is the very foundation for this essay to be done. Chapter 3 deals with specific instances of several criminal tribunals with the reference of the ICJ. The reason for this is that the ICJ, as well as its predecessor PCIJ, has long been standing for its legitimacy, it has developed a relatively sophisticated jurisdiction doctrine which is able to transform political controversies into legal debates. Of course, in the context of the ICTY, ICTR and the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the ICC applies almost the same jurisprudence. But the fundamental differences between ICC and other ad hoc tribunals are the jurisdiction issues. Chapter 4 touches upon the controversies on the jurisdiction of the ICC and explains why it is so. Then this leads me immediately jumping out of the ambit of international criminal law, by doing so I shall borrow the jurisprudence from general international law even the domestic constitutional law. Chapter 5 gave a legitimacy test of the ICC jurisdiction and I shall discuss the possible justification of the ICC interference upon non-party States. At the every end, brief conclusions will be drawn based on the aforementioned arguments.