The Jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in Relation to the Usage of Chemical Weapon

(Received: 2014/1/22 - Accepted: 2015/1/5) Using the chemical weapon has been recognized as an atrocious crime by customary international law for a long time. Regardless of diplomatic and military responses to the international crimes, nowadays, criminals can be prosecuted by the international criminal court. However, because there is no explicit statement in the statute of this court (Art.8) in relation to the criminalization of the chemical weapon usage, there is some vagueness in the jurisdiction of the court in this respect. Some international scholars believe that based on (I) strict interpretation, and (II) deletion of this weapon from the draft of the ICC statute, the court has no jurisdiction over chemical weapon. However, scrutinizing the problem, this paper combines special forms of interpretations in criminal law such as strict interference and, some kinds of interpretations in international law which mentioned in the Vienna convention on law of treaties 1969. Finally, it concludes that by recourse to teleological and literal interpretations, the court has the jurisdiction to prosecute this crime.