2 - Questions of State Consent and Sovereignty

Summary

Chapter 2 provides a contextual discussion of why some non-States Parties object to the jurisdiction of the ICC. The chapter engages with the allegation that the Rome Statute infringes on the sovereignty of non-States Parties by allowing the ICC to prosecute their nationals in certain circumstances. This involves an analysis of how the Statute affects non-States Parties and an evaluation of whether such effects amount to an infringement of State sovereignty. How sovereignty interacts with international law is largely a matter of perspective, and how States perceive sovereignty shapes their view of whether there is an acceptable legal basis for the Rome Statute’s jurisdiction provisions. This chapter argues that the ICC needs to recognise such concerns and formulate the legal basis for its jurisdiction in a way that maximises the role of State consent.