The International Criminal Court was established to judge those accused of the most serious crimes that took place after 1 July 2002. It was founded on 17 July 1998. It is based in The Hague. The tribunal consists of 18 judges who are elected by secret voting by countries which are subject to the jurisdiction. Every country has the opportunity to make two nominations of judges. Nominees should have high moral values, the highest skills of judges, also, a very important issue is the experience in conducting criminal cases and recognized competence in international law. The organs of the Tribunal comprises such departments as: the Pre-Trial Division, the Trial Division, the Appeals Division, the Office of the Prosecutor and the Registry. This office deals exclusively with prosecution of individuals, and only for acts that were committed after the entry into force of the statute, or after its adoption by the country. The International Court deals with adjudication of such crimes as genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression. As it can be noted, terrorism, which is undoubtedly a huge crime against humanity, is omitted. It happened on purpose, because at the time of the Rome conference, the countries taking part in it could not come to agreement on a definition of terrorism. Currently functioning International Court of Justice is a UN body predestined to settle disputes between states and not, as it had in his intention, to prosecute individuals for international crimes. In the procedure we will find a record of who has the right to address its issues to the Court. These are the countries that adopted the Rome Statute, the ICC prosecutor, as well as the UN Security Council. The UN Security Council has the right to block any inquiry and the possibility of extending this period an unlimited number of times. The maximum penalty that may be promulgated by the ICC is 30 years of imprisonment, and even life imprisonment.
We ought to know that the Court is complementary to national justice. It can judge a criminal only if for some reason he cannot be punished by the courts in his country. Complementarity is a guarantee of respect for the sovereignty of states that have adopted the Rome Statute. It is worth mentioning that the body has neither the army nor the police and there are no technical conditions to bring the accused before its face. It is entirely dependent on the goodwill of countries and governments.