The Security Council and the International Criminal Courts
The purpose of our research is to acknowledge that the link between the Security Council and international criminal jurisdictions is to be understood essentially under two entirely new perspectives in international law: the direct or indirect involvement of the Security Council in the creation of jurisdictional bodies and its intrusion in the operating procedures of the latter. Legally, the Security Council fully exercises this double role in accordance with Article 24 of the Charter of the United Nations, which devolves to it the main responsibility in the matter of maintaining peace and international security. Indeed, the Security Council, whether it is in the creation of ICCs, in its variable role in the setting up of mixed courts, in its power of submission and suspension of cases before the ICP which is imparted to it by the Statute of Rome, in its ultimate part in ensuring the obligation mutual cooperation amongst states, or in its discretionary power in the characterization of the crime of aggression, has become, thanks to the abiding foundation of Chapter VII, the genuine catalyst of international criminal justice. However, the downside to this importance of the Security Council is neither to be overlooked nor without interest. The sudden, and at first highly debated emergence of the Security Council in the area of international criminal justice has rekindled an old debate in international law: that of the political and the juridical order. The terms of this conflict show quite clearly through the approach of our analysis. We cannot evade this debate, considering how intricately the issues and concerns of international criminal justice and those of relating to peacekeeping are consubstantially interwoven. We may notice, albeit at some distance and some restraint, that the very terms of this link nurture all sorts of conjectures over the independence and impartiality of the international criminal courts.