The court’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, was adopted on July 17, 1998. A year of activities leading up to the 20th anniversary in 2018 presents an opportunity to build much-needed political support for the ICC's important judicial work. [...] Backing from member countries is needed to carry out the court’s investigations, arrest warrants, and witness protection programs. Private and public diplomacy is necessary to protect the court’s independence and legitimacy from outside political pressure.

The Israeli government has launched a public diplomacy campaign to discredit the legitimacy of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) recent decision to start an inquiry into what the Palestinians call Israeli “war crimes” in Judea and Samaria.

One of the problems with Israeli public diplomacy is that it is predictably reactive and generally negative. Suppose, for once, Israel were to take a different tack, one based on the principles used by judo experts--namely, to use the opponent's own strengths and moves against him

In a move that heightened tensions with Israel and could lead to cuts in U.S. aid, the Palestinians on Friday delivered to U.N. headquarters documents on joining the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and other international treaties.

Egypt’s deposed government filed a complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC), requesting investigations into what it described as crimes committed by the military against its members. The complaint accused the military of staging a coup d’etat against the country’s first elected president Mohamed Morsi and his government, which was followed by the detention of its members and the usage of “extreme force to remove civilians who gathered to protest against the coup."

The African Union and Kenya have formally asked the U.N. Security Council to suspend an International Criminal Court prosecution of the Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy on the grounds that it is undermining the Kenyan leaders' efforts to fight terrorism.

The Nigerian government was deliberating on actions to be taken regarding the Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir during his visit to Abuja last month where he attended a health summit organized by the African Union (AU), according to formal filing by Abuja released today. Nigeria at the time defended receiving Bashir who is subject to two arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes and genocide committed in Sudan's western region of Darfur.