The paper begins with the evolution of the concept of international criminal court. Then, the emergence of the ICC with the Geneva Convention and the Nuremberg Convention are also emphasized. The paper also deals with the provisions of Article 12 and Article 13 of Rome statute of International Criminal Court(ICC), which deals with the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and issues of complementarity and universality. The paper also deals with the issue of nullen crimen sine lege and the concept of nulla poena sine lege in the criminal jurisdiction of the ICC. The court also deals with the issues of defining genocide, and the thin line where the jurisdiction of an individual country ends and that of the ICC commences. The influence of the Security Council and the issues of sovereignty are also dealt by the ICC . The opposition of the United States of America meted out to the ICC only for the sake of hegemony over the other countries is also discussed in this paper.
