The International Penal Court has its seat in The Hague (Netherlands), close to the International Penal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, once again in the spotlight following the assassination of Serbian premier Zoran Djindjic, whose good offices had permitted some Balkan war criminals, including Milosevic, to be handed over to the tribunal to stand trial. In contrast to the tribunal, however, the new permanent Court is not bound by any specific mandate, but may judge those responsible for such crimes as genocide, ethnic cleansing, sexual slavery and mutilation. The court was instituted by the Treaty of Rome in July 1998, signed by 120 countries and entered into force on 1 July 2002, three months after ratification by the sixtieth signatory country. So far 89 countries have ratified the treaty and thus submitted to the jurisdiction of the Court. The intervention of the Court occurs if one of the parties involved is a State that has ratified the Treaty, if the person accused is a citizen of one of the signatory States, or if a crime has been committed on the territory of a signatory State. But even countries that have not ratified the treaty may accept the jurisdiction of the Court for specific crimes, committed within their own territory or by their own citizens. Only actions committed after 1st July 2002 are, however, indictable. The relation with national courts is based on the principle of complementarity: the prerogative to exercise their own jurisdiction is left to the national courts. The International court shall only intervene once the impossibility or the lack of will to proceed in one of these courts is ascertained. The Court, directly funded by the member countries, is a distinct entity of the United Nations. However, the UN Security Council may refer a particular situation to the Public Prosecutor.
