"The proposed International Criminal Court will be a permanent Court that will investigate and bring to justice individuals, not countries, who commit the most serious crimes of concern to the international community, such as genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity-including widespread murder of civilians, torture and mass rape. The ICC will be a global judicial institution, an international jurisdiction complementing national legal systems."

"A long-cherished dream of human rights campaigners, the court will, in theory, be able to bring prosecutions against world leaders, army officers and others thought responsible for war crimes or crimes against humanity."

"There's been so little holding to account on so many horrific offences and crimes committed around the world - in Cambodia, Iraq, Chechnya," said Richard Dicker, international criminal justice director for Human Rights Watch. "This changes all that."

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