Investigating the status of crimes committed by ISIL and the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court

The International Criminal Court is a permanent and independent international body which, according to Article 5 of the Statute, deals with four categories of crimes, namely genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of rape, in the territory or by state citizens that may be exercised within the Court’s jurisdiction. Given the heinous crimes committed by ISIL members in the governments’ territory of Iraq and Syria, this apparently could be an issue to the Court’s jurisdiction.

The proposed study is analytical-descriptive in terms of its application and has been conducted by using library-based resources of laws and regulations, in particular the Statute of the Court.

The present article has investigated the possibility of applying judicial solutions to the International Criminal Court in investigating the crimes of the terrorist group ISIL as one of the most prominent Selfi -Takfiri groups and has concluded that based on the Court’ statute and due to the inability of the competent domestic courts, the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction over ISIL both in terms of universal jurisdiction and complementary jurisdiction.