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Foreword by Ambassador Philippe Kirsch, QC
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- By Ambassador Philippe Kirsch, Canadian Ambassador Kingdom of Sweden; Chairman of the Preparatory Commission for the International Criminal Court; former Chairman of the Committee of the Whole, United Nations Diplomatic Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court
- Knut Dörmann, International Committee of the Red Cross
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- Book:
- Elements of War Crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
- Published online:
- 08 August 2009
- Print publication:
- 27 March 2003, pp xiii-xiv
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- Chapter
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Summary
On June 30, 2000, the Preparatory Commission for the International Criminal Court (ICC) adopted by consensus the draft Elements of Crimes, elaborating upon the definitions of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes contained in the ICC Statute. The Elements document, to be adopted by the ICC Assembly of States Parties, was the culmination of a remarkable codification process by the international community. The negotiations involved experts from a variety of diverse fields, including military lawyers, human rights lawyers and criminal lawyers, working together to reconcile their conflicting perspectives, priorities and backgrounds, to create a single statement on these serious international crimes.
The development of the Elements of Crimes has proven to be a very useful exercise. Because of the general agreement that the definitions of crimes in the ICC Statute were to reflect existing customary international law, and not to create new law, states relied heavily on accepted historical precedents in crafting the definitions in Articles 6 to 8 of the ICC Statute. This approach ensured the widespread acceptability of the definitions, but resulted in an assortment of provisions drawn from different sources and different eras. As a result, terminology was frequently inconsistent and often outdated. The Elements of Crimes negotiations provided the opportunity to unify these provisions in a single coherent structure, reflecting consistent and modern terminology. It was also an opportunity to resolve difficult problems and ambiguities surrounding the interplay of general legal principles, such as the mens rea requirement for particular provisions.