Understanding the International Criminal Court

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III. Crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC

25. Which crimes fall within the jurisdiction of the ICC?

The mandate of the Court is to try individuals (rather than States), and to hold such persons accountable

for the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole, namely the crime of

genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression, when the conditions for

the exercise of the Court’s jurisdiction over the latter are fulfilled.

26. What is genocide?

According to the Rome Statute, “genocide” means any of the following acts committed with the intent

to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group:

•

killing members of the group;

•

causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

•

deliberately  inflicting  on  the  group  conditions  of  life  calculated  to  bring  about  its

physical destruction in whole or in part;

•

imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

•

forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.