Cooperation is an important aspect of the International Criminal Court's (ICC) task: ‘to put an end to impunity for the perpetrators’ of ‘the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole’. Because these crimes ‘threaten the peace, security and well-being of the world’, the ICC must necessarily have the support and assistance of as many states as possible. One of the ways to achieve the ICC's goal of ending impunity is to obtain greater cooperation from both state parties and non-party states. In the absence of police power, cooperation from states — in executing...

Cooperation is an important aspect of the International Criminal Court's (ICC) task: ‘to put an end to impunity for the perpetrators’ of ‘the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole’. Because these crimes ‘threaten the peace, security and well-being of the world’, the ICC must necessarily have the support and assistance of as many states as possible. One of the ways to achieve the ICC's goal of ending impunity is to obtain greater cooperation from both state parties and non-party states. In the absence of police power, cooperation from states — in executing arrest warrants, in seizing and transferring evidence, and in logistics and the relocation of witnesses — is really the lifeline of international criminal tribunals. This chapter focuses on cooperation by states. It begins discussing what obligations states have to cooperate with the ICC, and then turns briefly to examining how states are living up to that duty in practice.