The International Criminal Court (ICC), located in The Hague, Netherlands, is a permanent tribunal established to prosecute individuals for the gravest crimes of concern to the international community: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression. The ICC is a court of last resort, meaning it only intervenes when national courts are unwilling or unable to genuinely investigate and prosecute such crimes. While it strives to hold perpetrators accountable and deter future atrocities, the ICC's jurisdiction is limited to states that have ratified its founding treaty, the Rome Statute, and to crimes committed on the territory of those states or by their nationals.
