The Ideal of Criminal Justice and Legal Standards: Exercising Jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court over Nationals of non-State Parties

International Criminal Court (ICC) is the first permanent body established in pursuance of implementing criminal justice and fight against impunity and was assigned with the critical function of prosecution and conviction of perpetrators of the most heinous international crimes. Having been enforced in 2002, the Rome Statute is the constitutional document of the Court which was drafted and adopted with the goal of ensuring effectiveness and efficiency of this primary international body. Provisions related to jurisdiction of the Court are among the most important parts of the Statute and were the subject of many controversial issues during the negotiations of the Rome conference, after the establishment of the Court, and even now. One such issue is the preconditions to the exercise of jurisdiction the Court and the existence of jurisdictional gaps in the Statute in the confrontation with the international crimes covered in that document. This article tries to, first, appropriately elaborate on the preconditions to the exercise of jurisdiction formulated in Article 12 of the Statute, second, to explain the arguments for and against expanding the mentioned preconditions, and finally, to submit an argumentative assessment of different views concerning whether such expansion is possible.