Is it is a court, is it an international organization, is it an institution: what is the ICC in the first place?

As the 23rd Assembly of States Parties of the ICC - or, loosely speaking, the Court's 'parliament, otherwise known as the 'management oversight mechanism' - is meeting in The Hague, the ICC is even further in the spotlight as a quite tumultous year for the Court, and the global community as as whole is coming to an end. The ASPs are a collection of fast paced events - official and revealing, such as the 'general debate' and consultations on a number of key topics such as cooperation, complementarity, and the 'omnibus resolution', or closed such as the budget negotiations. The side events during the ASP are also critical as those allow advocacy groups to campaign on behalf of victims, or raise critical issues with regard to the work of the Court. It was during these side events that the issue of 'ecocide' was raised some time ago, or the notion that intentionally destroying the environment during conflict should also be a crime. Hopefully 'ecocide' might become the 5th category of crimes the ICC will have jurisdiction over.

The commentary on the Court usually becomes 'sharper' during the ASPs as key documents and reports are presented by Court officials which provide key insights into the workings of the Court. The grand total of documents may be found on the website of the ASP. Of those documents, the report dealing with 'activities and program performance' of the Court for 2023 is even further valuable as it details the budgetary performance of the Court, as well as how the so called - 'major programmes', or offices such as the Office of the Prosecutor, the Judiciary and others - functioned and performed in 2023. Taking the risk of sounding obvious, but a lot has happened at the Court in 2023.

With all the activities taking place at the Court, and the activities surrounding the Court, which included arrest warrants to Israeli officials, usually one of the most contentious issues addressed in and around the ASPs is how effective and how efficient is the Court. These are age-old debates which often digress into 'how many cases are in the docket?' or 'how many cases did the ICC complete to date?' or, my favourite, 'how many convictions did the Court have thus far?' There seems to be a constant push to present and hear more cases which, I would argue, at some point flies in the face of the actual dispensation of justice, or its value in the first place.

Of course, 'the other' side of the debate should begin by asking the following question: do numerical indicators come anywhere close to really measuring the effectiveness, or the value, of the Court? The answer to this is, of course, is not very simple as it is evident here, but numerical indicators should be of secondary or tertiary considerations when it comes to the work of the Court. Why? Well, because the Court's mandate - and I would argue 'raison d'etre' - are much, much larger than counting the number of trials, the number of accused, and the number of completed trials. If we look at how many victims came within the purview of the Court, we are in the 'ballpark' of thousands of beneficiaries, for example, of reparations. Of course, these 'other' numbers may be easily ignored if one maintains a 'cramp-induced' and myopic focus on 'the numbers' with respect to the trials and cases. A broader perspective emerges when one considers the 'other' components of the so-called 'Rome Statute System', or the Trust Fund for Victims, the Assembly and the Court. These components of the system reveal a much broader impact and reach of the Court, and its work.

So, in Rome, the Court was not the only institution - hint! - that was established. State delegations established two other 'pillars' of the system which, when considered in tandem, show a quite different picture of what the dispensation of justice is via the Rome statute system. So, is the ICC a court, and international organization, or an institutions with a very unique and contentious system - well, actually it is the later. And, if we consider the Court to be a institution within an even broader 'regime' of institutions of international criminal justice which include the ad hoc and hybrid tribunals, then I think we need to broader our considerations as to how we may measure the performance of the Court, and then system of institutions in the first place.