General principles of criminal law
1. INTRODUCTION
More than fifty years after the Nuremberg trials, the international community has established a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC).
The dramatic midnight vote in Rome on July 17, 1998, called by the United
States of America, overwhelmingly approved the statute for the ICC by
120 votes to seven, with twenty-one abstentions.1 The vote was a historical
breakthrough and the message sent out from Rome is an unequivocal stop
to impunity for grave human rights violations.
However, a closer look at the Rome Statute brings us quickly back to
the world of complex legal technicalities and insufficiencies, a product
of the “spirit of compromise” hanging over the diplomatic negotiations
at the Food and Agriculture Organization building in Rome. The Rome
Statute is not a dogmatically refined international model penal and procedural code. It could not be. But it is an attempt to merge the criminal
justice systems of more than 150 States into one legal instrument that
was more or less acceptable to every delegation present in Rome. This
applies to all parts of the Statute, but in particular to Part 3, which is
entitled “General Principles.” For criminal lawyers, the general part is
the centre of dogmatic reflections and the starting point for any criminal
? Research fellow, Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law.
Dr. jur., University of Munich 1992. The author was a member of the German delegation
at the Rome Diplomatic Conference but only expresses his personal opinion in this article.
1 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, adopted by the United Nations
Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court on 17 July 17, 1998, U.N. Doc. A/CONF.183/9 (1998), 37 I.L.M. 999 (1998),
<http://www.un.org/icc>. See, for a general overview: Kai Ambos, Zur Rechtsgrundlage
des neuen Internationalen Strafgerichtshofs, 111 ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR DIE GESAMTE
STRAFRECHTSWISSENSCHAFT-ZSTW 175 (1999); see also the special issue (4/1998) of
the European Journal of Crime, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice (EUR. J. CRIME
More than fifty years after the Nuremberg trials, the international community has established a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC).
The dramatic midnight vote in Rome on July 17, 1998, called by the United
States of America, overwhelmingly approved the statute for the ICC by
120 votes to seven, with twenty-one abstentions.1 The vote was a historical
breakthrough and the message sent out from Rome is an unequivocal stop
to impunity for grave human rights violations.
However, a closer look at the Rome Statute brings us quickly back to
the world of complex legal technicalities and insufficiencies, a product
of the “spirit of compromise” hanging over the diplomatic negotiations
at the Food and Agriculture Organization building in Rome. The Rome
Statute is not a dogmatically refined international model penal and procedural code. It could not be. But it is an attempt to merge the criminal
justice systems of more than 150 States into one legal instrument that
was more or less acceptable to every delegation present in Rome. This
applies to all parts of the Statute, but in particular to Part 3, which is
entitled “General Principles.” For criminal lawyers, the general part is
the centre of dogmatic reflections and the starting point for any criminal
? Research fellow, Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law.
Dr. jur., University of Munich 1992. The author was a member of the German delegation
at the Rome Diplomatic Conference but only expresses his personal opinion in this article.
1 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, adopted by the United Nations
Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court on 17 July 17, 1998, U.N. Doc. A/CONF.183/9 (1998), 37 I.L.M. 999 (1998),
<http://www.un.org/icc>. See, for a general overview: Kai Ambos, Zur Rechtsgrundlage
des neuen Internationalen Strafgerichtshofs, 111 ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR DIE GESAMTE
STRAFRECHTSWISSENSCHAFT-ZSTW 175 (1999); see also the special issue (4/1998) of
the European Journal of Crime, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice (EUR. J. CRIME
Sir nice one
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