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could. In that sense the experience of Resolution 1373 is an illustration of the motivation
of the international community and of its determination and the potential of its ability to
act together in close cooperation and in coordinated fashion in the face of a common
global challenge.
Effective international cooperation is vital to the implementation and realisation of
international objectives. I should like to concentrate my final remarks on the
International Criminal Court, paying particular attention to some of the issues that would
be required of member States pursuant to the regime of cooperation and judicial
assistance under the ICC Statute and through domestic implementation legislation.
International Criminal Court
The establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is part of a broader
momentum in the 1990s towards the revival and development of international criminal
law. Its existence today represents the acknowledgment of the need for international
criminal justice and for a permanent Court to administer it.
The Court was created under the Rome Statute of 1998 which came into effect on 1 July
2002. To date the Statute has been signed by 139 countries and ratified by 92 six of
which are from the Pacific: Australia, Fiji, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand and
Samoa.
The Courts jurisdiction is limited to the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and
war crimes. When ongoing work has been completed and there is agreement on a
definition of aggression, the Court will also have jurisdiction over the crime of
aggression. The threshold is high, for all these are the most serious crimes of concern to
the international community. They are crimes acknowledged in the Statute as having
deeply shocked the conscience of humanity and which threaten the peace, security and
well-being of the world, and must not go unpunished. As declared in the Preamble to the
Statute, the States Parties have affirmed their determination to put an end to impunity
and thus to contribute to the prevention of such crimes. The jurisdiction of the Court
extends only to natural persons, who must be over 18 years at the time of the alleged
commission of a crime, and not States or corporations.
The Courts jurisdiction is complementary to that of national courts, and is structured on
the premise acknowledged in the Statute of the duty of every State to exercise its criminal
jurisdiction over those responsible for international crimes. The complementarity
principle ensures the primacy of national systems of law and of national courts, and
would mean that the national court has the primary responsibility for the prosecution of
crimes that fall within the jurisdiction of the ICC. The ICC will act only if the national
court is unable or unwilling to act to bring transgressors to justice. The ICC is therefore a
court not of first, but of last resort.
State cooperation