CYIL vol. 10 (2019)

HANNA KUCZYŃSKA – KAROLINA WIERCZYŃSKA CYIL 10 ȍ2019Ȏ expert at the Criminal Chamber of the Polish Supreme Court (from 2005). Author of three monographs on international criminal procedure: The Accusation Model before the International Criminal Court (Springer 2015), published also in Polish (C. H. Beck 2014), Wspólny obszar postępowania karnego w prawie Unii Europejskiej (Scholar 2008), and of a significant number of articles relating to this field (many of them available in English) and to the Polish procedural and material law. Karolina Wierczyńska , dr. hab. iur., Associate professor at the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, managing editor of Polish Yearbook of International Law and blog on international law: przegladpm.blogspot.com. In her two monographs (published in Polish in 2010 and 2016) she explored the notion of genocide in the context of the jurisdiction of international criminal tribunals ad hoc and admissibility of the case before the ICC. She recently co-edited two volumes: Fragmentation vs. the Constitutionalisation of International Law: a Practical Inquiry (Routledge 2016), and The Case of Crimea’s Annexation under International Law (Scholar 2017). 1. Introduction The last two years have witnessed extremely important anniversaries of the most fundamental treaties for international public law. To point out only a few: the 50 th year anniversary of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969), 60 th year anniversary of the four Geneva Conventions (1949), 60 th year anniversary of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (celebrated last year along with the 50th year anniversary of the Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, which was adopted in 1968). Another anniversary last year was that of the Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998), which marked twenty years of its existence and of the development of international criminal law and the question of the individual responsibility at an international forum. Comparing it to the other treaties, the ICC Statute (also: the Rome Statute, or the Statute) seems a rather novel instrument. Nevertheless like the treaties mentioned above it is a milestone in the evolution of international law, specifying how individual criminal responsibility should function and how it should be implemented in international law. The Statute is an extraordinary treaty, a symbolic emanation of the will of states which desired to fight against impunity of the perpetrators of the most serious crimes. 1 At the same time the Statute itself, like the practice of the Court, has been in many ways a very limited instrument and support for the ICC is neither as optimistic nor as widespread as it once was. 2 Great expectations concerning the emergence of the first universal permanent international court have collided with accusations concerning its ineffectiveness, politicization, or even its neo- colonial policy towards investigated situations. 3 1 As reflected in its Preamble, see: Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 2187 UNTS p. 3. 2 See the analysis here: https://www.justsecurity.org/60680/international-criminal-court-john-bolton-afghanistan- torture/, and 3 part analysis of Douglas Guilfoyle entitled This is not fine: The International Criminal Court in Trouble here: https://www.ejiltalk.org/part-iii-this-is-not-fine-the-international-criminal-court-in-trouble/ [accessed 30.05.2019]. 3 This is mainly a criticism emanating from the African states, as evaluated by LABUDA, P., The International Criminal Court And Perceptions Of Sovereignty, Colonialism And Pan-African Solidarity, 20 African Yearbook of International Law 289 (2013–2014), pp. 289-321.

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