The United Nations General Assembly created a Preparatory Committee to establish an International Criminal Court, which had existed since 1995. In 1996, the General Assembly decided (A/RES/51/207) that a diplomatic conference of plenipotentiaries be held in 1998 in Rome. The impetus for the court came from the ad hoc international tribunals set up in the 1990s to address the atrocity crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The court’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, was adopted on 17 July 1998 by 160 nations, and the court began its work in 2003.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) investigates and, where warranted, tries individuals charged with the gravest crimes of concern to the international community: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes of aggression.
As a court of last resort, it seeks to complement, not replace, national Courts. As opposed to the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the UN, designed to deal primarily with disputes between States, the ICC has jurisdiction over matters involving individual criminal responsibility.

Governed by an international treaty called the Rome Statute, the ICC is the world’s first permanent international criminal court.

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