How the UNSC and ASP can enhance cooperation with the ICC

This policy brief by the Institute for Security Studies outlines recommendations for the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) to address state non-cooperation with the International Criminal Court (ICC). It proposes specific legal and political mechanisms to ensure the ICC can effectively investigate and prosecute serious international crimes.

• The UN Security Council should enhance the effectiveness of its ICC referrals by imposing cooperation obligations on all UN member states under Article 25 of the UN Charter, rather than only on the states directly involved in the referred situation.
• To prevent legal hurdles in the prosecution of senior officials, the UNSC should use explicit language in its referral resolutions to lift any personal or functional immunities that might prevent the arrest or surrender of state officials from non-states parties.
• The UNSC can promote cooperation during the investigation and prosecution stages by establishing a process for targeted sanctions against individuals with ICC arrest warrants and by mandating UN peacekeeping, peace enforcement, and peacebuilding missions in relevant territories to cooperate with the court.
• The UNSC should implement more efficient follow-up mechanisms for its referrals and make the consideration of non-cooperation a routine matter, potentially through a renewed mandate for the Informal Working Group on International Tribunals.
• The Assembly of States Parties (ASP) should routinely respond to ICC findings of non-cooperation by using open letters that warn states of specific consequences and by referring instances of non-cooperation to the UNSC, regardless of the trigger mechanism that brought the case to the court.
• When non-cooperation is caused by legal uncertainty regarding the Rome Statute, the ASP can adopt interpretative resolutions. If these are agreed upon by all states parties, they may be treated as 'subsequent agreements' or 'subsequent practice' under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and considered by the court.

APA

Akande, D., & Dias, T. D. S. (2019). How the UNSC and ASP can enhance cooperation with the ICC. Institute for Security Studies. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/pb124.pdf

Chicago

Akande, Dapo, and Talita de Souza Dias. How the UNSC and ASP can enhance cooperation with the ICC. Institute for Security Studies, 2019. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/pb124.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Akande |first1=Dapo |last2=Dias |first2=Talita de Souza |title=How the UNSC and ASP can enhance cooperation with the ICC |publisher=Institute for Security Studies |date=2019 |url=https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/pb124.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{akande2019how, author = {Akande, Dapo and Dias, Talita de Souza}, title = {{How the UNSC and ASP can enhance cooperation with the ICC}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, year = {2019}, url = {https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/pb124.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }