The Exercise Of Jurisdiction Of The International Criminal Court In The Arab States And Its Challenges

The World Wars had caused the emergence of international will to the fight against international crimes such as war crimes,crimes against humanity,which decimated humanity and claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens.As a result,the international community was in dire need for justice,security and peace at the international level,so the international efforts headed towards the establishment of a permanent judicial system at the international level,especially of grave criminal cases which concern to the international community;such as crimes against humanity,war crimes,and aggression and genocide,the international justice must be able to prosecute the perpetrators of such crimes independently regardless the political interests.In the beginning,the idea of the international community was aiming to establish special criminal courts to try war criminals in the First and Second World Wars.However,the ambitions of the world was far from that;the scholars of international law sought to establish a permanent court to adjudicate on international humanitarian law violations,which led to the establishment of the International Criminal Court(ICC)in 2002,this court operates under complementary jurisdiction to complete the role of the national judicial system,the ICC cannot play the role of national courts,it is because of the unwillingness of national courts or its inability to investigate or prosecute the perpetrators of those crimes.The importance of discussing the International Criminal Court's issue is to pursuit the deterrence of people who intend to violate international humanitarian law,by put an end to impunity for such violations,the International Criminal Court is the first independent permanent criminal tribunal,created by the international community to prosecute war criminals and perpetrators and atrocities against humanity and crimes of genocide and aggression.The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court has admitted four jurisdictions and mentioned exclusively in Article 5: the crimes of genocide,crimes against humanity,war crimes and crimes of aggression,the last one is not defined since the status of the statute,in 2009,it is defined but did not enter into force.But the seriousness of this crime and its effects on humanity,especially the weak states,who need a permanent judicial court,the question remains,whether this court will be able to deter and punish the perpetrators of these crimes,especially the crimes which were committed in the Arab countries,as one of the developing states that need such a device.The Researcher through this thesis has discussed the role of Arab states in the International Criminal Court and how it has contributed to the proliferation of the jurisdiction of ICC.Keeping in mind the role played by the court in context of the Arab states,the ICC has jurisdiction;if there are one or more of such crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court appear to have been committed,the State Party may refer to the Prosecutor to investigate the situation in accordance with article 14,addition,if one or more of such crimes appears to have been committed is referred to the Prosecutor by the Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations and according to article 13 of the Rome Statute,or the Prosecutor has initiated an investigation in respect of such a crime according to article 15.I have discussed four different situations to illustrate how the court dealt with each one of them,Sudan and Libya had referred by the UN Security Council,although Palestine was supposed to be referred to the court by the Security Council,but for the political interests,the UN Security Council did not exercise its function-when there is a threat to international peace and security,or committed the most serious crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC,other solution had given according to chapter 12,paragraph 3,“the states can by declaration lodged with the Registrar of the Court to accept the exercise of jurisdiction.” The third case: I have discussed Iraq situation,which could be competent by the court in accordance to chapter 13,or referred by Security Council.I've discussed all of these cases and clarified the exercising of the ICC jurisdiction over these cases,and mentioned to the crimes committed,and which are entering under the jurisdiction of ICC,and the obstacles faced by the ICC in those countries while exercising its jurisdiction.The researcher has also discussed the most important challenges the court had dealt with,through the study of the four cases and in the end the researcher finished this study with giving recommendations.