International Criminal Court - Investigations

Investigations

The Court has received complaints about alleged crimes in at least 139 countries, but, currently, the Prosecutor of the Court has opened investigations into seven situations in Africa: the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Uganda; the Central African Republic; Darfur, Sudan; the Republic of Kenya; the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire. Of these seven, three were referred to the Court by the concerned states parties themselves (Uganda, Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic), two were referred by the United Nations Security Council (Darfur and Libya) and two were begun proprio motu by the Prosecutor (Kenya and Côte d'Ivoire). Additionally, the government of Mali has referred the situation in the country to the Prosecutor. As Mali is a state party to the Rome Statute, the Prosecutor can now directly open a formal investigation once she has concluded the preliminary examination.

Key:
Official investigation
Authorization to open investigation requested
Preliminary examination ongoing
Preliminary examination closed

The Office of the Prosecutor applies different phases to any preliminary examination. Every examination is started with an initial review (phase 1). It is followed by clarifications of jurisdiction, namely temporal, territorial and personal jurisdiction (phase 2a) on one hand and subject-matter jurisdiction (phase 2b) on the other hand. After resolving this, the issue of admissibility (phase 3) and interests of justice (phase 4) complete the procedure.

Notes