In the hands of the state: implementing legislation and complementarity

doi:10.1017/CBO9781316134115.035

26 - In the hands of the state: implementing legislation and complementarity

from PART IV (Continued) - Interpretation and application

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2014

Olympia Bekou

Edited by

Carsten Stahn and

Mohamed M. El Zeidy

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Carsten Stahn: Affiliation:
Universiteit Leiden
Mohamed M. El Zeidy: Affiliation:
International Criminal Court

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Summary

This chapter discusses the link between complementarity and national implementing legislation. It focuses on the correlation between states’ expectations and the adoption of variant national views on complementarity. Through an overview of different state approaches that facilitate, obstruct or reinterpret complementarity, the chapter argues that implementing legislation offers an effective typology of complementarity which in turn provides good insight into how states, upon whose actions or inactions the system is based, appreciate the principle and its ramifications in practice.

Introduction

Complementarity has a key role to play in the regime created by the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court. A vital concept for the effective functioning of the Court, complementarity was one of the thorniest issues faced by those who designed this permanent institution and continues to hold a special place in the Statute as it regulates the Court's relationship with national legal orders.

At its inception, complementarity was chosen as a means of determining which forum will assume jurisdiction over a particular case. The product of a compromise that emerged in the negotiations for the establishment of the International Criminal Court (‘ICC’), complementarity serves a delicate balance between the competing interests of state sovereignty and judicial independence, without which the Court would not have materialized.

Type: Chapter
Information: The International Criminal Court and Complementarity
From Theory to Practice
, pp. 830 - 852

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316134115.035 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2011

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