Article 11 Jurisdiction Ratione Temporis

This is a commentary on Article 11 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Jurisdiction ratione temporis). The temporal parameters of the Court’s jurisdiction are restricted to crimes committed after its entry into force, which occurred on 1 July 2002. However, in terms of crimes that pre-date the Statute’s entry into force, but whose occurrence continues past 1 July 2002, the authors draw a fine line between two different categories of ‘continuing crimes’: (a) conduct where the actus reus is partly completed in the past, the effects of which continue to this day; (b) and conduct that constitutes an ongoing course of criminal activity, all of whose material elements continue to occur on a daily basis. The authors also examined the notion of ‘continuing crimes’ under human rights instruments particularly enforced or involuntary disappearances of persons as a serious violation of human rights and as a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute. Setting aside, the question of continuing crimes, the authors noted that international courts and tribunals have accepted the admission of evidence which pre-dates the applicable temporal jurisdiction for contextual purpose.