Amnesty and International Criminal Court

Abstract

During the past few decades the international community intensifed the efforts to create mechanisms to prosecute and punish the offenders of serious crimes. This paper discusses the complex relationship between the permanent International Criminal Court and amnesties which are usually granted by the countries within their national legislations following the end of internal (civil) conflicts or in order to protect the people who have committed serious crimes. This is rather a delicate issue which has not been clearly determined by the Rome Statute. This is why the author discusses the notion and historical context of amnesty in the first part of the paper. The second and central part of the paper refers to the relationship of national amnesties and the International Criminal Court (ICC) with a special review of diplomatic conference in Rome, preparatory meetings held before the adoption of the final text of the Rome Statute, its Preamble, provisions on complementariness (Article 17) and the principle ne bis in idem (Article 20). The author also pays due attention to the provisions which represent the alternative possibilities for the relationship towards national amnesties: to defer an investigation or criminal prosecution (Article 16) and discretion of the attorney to stop prosecution even in cases which are within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (Article 53).