Reconsidering Existential Dilemmas: Revisiting the Identity of the International Criminal Court on the 25th Anniversary of the Rome Statute

Abstract

Already since its steady codification and formulation as a separate, coherent
branch of international law, international criminal law (ICL) has faced and
is still dealing with critical and transformative challenges. One can indicatively
highlight the expansive tendency of various human rights fora to grant protection
to all individuals, at all circumstances, and their continuing efforts to
further promote and/or enforce the so-called “human right to peace”, which inevitably
reflects at an international criminal level1. The multiple conflicts (e.g.
the 2020/2023 revived Armenia/Azerbaijan saga) and conflict-like situations
(e.g. the 1974 Turkish invasion in and continuing occupation of Northern Cyprus,
the Russian effective control over former soviet states’ territories), and
most prominently the ongoing 2022 Russian (war of) aggression against and
full-scale invasion in Ukraine, are some examples towards this direction. As a
result, the debate on the (in)adequacy of ICL and the “impotence” of the International
Criminal Court to punish all perpetrators for the commission of the
crime of aggression2 and other international crimes committed (separately or
in this context), and to avoid past experiences, has been reinvigorated.