The European Union and the International Criminal Court

The paper describes the evolution of the relationship between the EU and the International Criminal Court, starting from the Union's role during the negotiations and, later, during the ratification process of the Rome Statute. The ratification of the ICC Statute has become an important feature of the EU's external policy, particularly towards developing countries. Secondly, the paper examines the possible interference between some EU legal instruments in the field of judicial cooperation in criminal matters and the obligations of EU Member States resulting from the Rome Statute, focusing particularly on the European arrest warrant and on the 2003 extradition agreement with the United States. Thirdly, the paper deals with the EU cooperation in the prosecution of international crimes, aimed at avoiding the impunity of criminals through close cooperation between judicial authorities in the Member States. The paper reaches the conclusion that the Union has acted, in the considered field, with a certain degree of coherence, both at the internal and external levels, maintaining the commitment it had made at the very beginning of the negotiations for the establishment of an international criminal court. Some shadows are mostly due to diplomatic concerns, in the European weak and ambiguous reaction to the U.S. practice of concluding immunity agreements in order to preserve U.S. nationals from prosecution by the ICC. It is worth noting as well that the EU and its Member States have demonstrated coherence and good will in the effort to making the prosecution and repression of crimes more effective, both at the internal, horizontal level, between judicial authorities of the Member States, and at the international, vertical level, i.e. between Member States and the International Criminal Court. These different planes of relations reflect the jurisdictional structure outlined by the Rome Statute, according to which international criminal jurisdiction only when the national judicial system in unwilling or unable to act.