ICC has no jurisdiction to prosecute ISIS

International Criminal Court (ICC) announced on Wednesday that it is unable to prosecute ISIS over its crimes because it lack territorial jurisdiction over the committed crimes, according to a recent statement.

In the statement, ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said: “Since the summer of 2014, my Office has been receiving and reviewing disturbing allegations of widespread atrocities committed in Syria and Iraq by the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham.”

The crimes, she said, are “of unspeakable cruelty” and varied from “mass executions to sexual slavery, rape and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence, torture, mutilation, enlistment and forced recruitment of children and the persecution of ethnic and religious minorities, etc…”

Bensouda reiterated that “the atrocities allegedly committed by ISIS undoubtedly constitute serious crimes of concern to the international community and threaten the peace, security and well-being of the region, and the world.”

“They [atrocities] occur in the context of other crimes allegedly committed by other warring factions in Syria and Iraq.”

But she said: “However, Syria and Iraq are not Parties to the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the ICC. Therefore, the Court has no territorial jurisdiction over crimes committed on their soil.”