The Rome Statute

In one line

The Rome Statute is a treaty of a preamble and 128 articles in 13 Parts, adopted at Rome on 17 July 1998 and in force from 1 July 2002, which admits no reservations, applies a ranked list of sources, and can be amended only by procedures that protect a State Party from being bound to a new crime without its consent.

How it is built

The Statute has a preamble and 128 articles in 13 Parts. The Parts do the work of chapters, and knowing what lies in each is the fastest way to answer a question about where a rule comes from.

Part 3 is the one that connects this module to the rest of the book, because it is the general part of a criminal code written into a treaty.

Signature, ratification and entry into force

Article 125. The Statute was open for signature by all States in Rome on 17 July 1998, thereafter in Rome until 17 October 1998, and after that in New York until 31 December 2000. It is subject to ratification, acceptance or approval by signatory States, and is open to accession by all States, instruments in each case being deposited with the Secretary General of the United Nations.

Article 126. The Statute enters into force on the first day of the month after the 60th day following the deposit of the 60th instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession. For a State becoming a party later, the same formula runs from its own deposit.

That condition was satisfied and the Statute entered into force on 1 July 2002.

No reservations

Article 120. No reservations may be made to this Statute.

Five words, and they matter more than their length suggests. A treaty that allowed reservations would let each State Party accept the Court on its own terms, and the Court would then apply a different Statute to each state. Article 120 makes ratification an all or nothing choice, which is one reason states with objections, India among them, have not ratified rather than ratifying with qualifications.

The Statute contains its own exceptions to this rigour, most notably the transitional provision on war crimes which allowed a State on becoming a party to declare that for seven years it did not accept the Court's jurisdiction over war crimes committed by its nationals or on its territory. That is not a reservation; it is an option the Statute itself gives, which is exactly why it had to be written in.