Article 124 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court: ‘Transitional Provision’ or ‘The Right to (Convenient) Opt-out’

Abstract

Article 123 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court provides for a Review Conference to consider any amendments to the statute. Amendments proposed and forwarded by the Assembly of State Parties (asp) were considered during the first Review Conference held at Kampala in 2010. Out of the three potential amendments to the Rome Statute, a proposal to delete Article 124 of the Statute failed. This article evaluates the consistency between contents and objectives of the Rome Statute with reference to a dichotomy which has been emerged after the first Review Conference due to the retention of Article 124. The article questions the basis of the retention of Article 124, and argues that the ‘opt-out provision’ enshrined in Article 124 should be deleted from the Rome Statute during the fourteenth session of the asp in 2015.