Gravity at the International Criminal Court: admissibility and prosecutorial discretion

Book

The gravity of a crime or case features in various international and national legal frameworks for the investigation and prosecution of international crimes. At the International Criminal Court, ‘sufficient gravity’ is a requirement for the admissibility of a case specified in Article 17(1)(d) of the Rome Statute. The open-textured nature of the provision leaves open to question the manner of its application and, ultimately, the purpose of the gravity criterion in the context of the Prosecutor’s decisions whether to investigate and whether to prosecute. Set against the backdrop of ongoing debates as to how to justify selective investigations and prosecutions at the Court, this book addresses the question of how the gravity criterion is to be applied in the context of the Prosecutor’s respective decisions whether to investigate and to prosecute. By proposing a more coherent and persuasive application of the criterion than that reflected in the Court’s twenty years of practice, it argues that the purpose of the gravity criterion in this context is the allocation of limited investigative and prosecutorial resources. First, identifying appropriate indicators of gravity, the book contends that the application of Article 17(1)(d) requires a subjective assessment that involves the exercise of discretion. Second, by clarifying the respective roles of the Prosecutor and the Pre-Trial Chambers of the Court in the assessment of gravity in different contexts, it argues in favour of wide prosecutorial discretion in the making of this assessment compared with the limited powers of judicial oversight conferred on the Pre-Trial Chamber.

Authors: Urs, P

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Place of publication: Oxford
• Publication date: 2024-01-18
• Edition: 1
• DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198882954.001.0001
• EISBN: 9780191991516
• ISBN: 9780198882954
• Language: English
• Keywords: investigation; judicial review; admissibility; prosecutorial discretion; judicial deference; Rome Statute; Article 17(1)(d); International Criminal Court; prosecution; gravity