1. Colombia is a state party to the Rome Statute and a member of the International Criminal Court. Does the Court have jurisdiction over the Colombian military or FARC rebels? If so, are the cases against the FARC rebels or the Colombian military admissible?
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4. Once jurisdiction has been triggered, the case must be admissible. There are two criteria for admissibility. First and most important is complementarity. The Court may only prosecute when a government is unwilling or unable to do so. This is happening in a few cases currently. Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, Qaddafi's son in Libya, the former intelligence chief, is wanted by the Court. But Libya wants to put him on trial. Will the Court respect that investigation and that trial? We'll see. It depends on how free and fair it is, et cetera. Libya just wants to take him out back and shoot him, probably. The Court is understandably reluctant to let that happen. Currently, that's the situation in Colombia because the FARC rebels are facing charges for war crimes and crimes against humanity. So the Court currently can't prosecute in Colombia just yet because trials are underway. 
5. Similarly, in Cote d'Ivoire, there are some trials underway. So the Court can only prosecute when a country is unwilling or unable to do so. That complementarity threshold must be met. Second, the case must be sufficiently serious. It must be grave enough. It must meet the gravity threshold that's put in the Rome Statute. It's a vague concept. Are 10 deaths enough? What about 100? What about just destruction of property? What if it's a historically preserved site, or something like that? It's a vague concept. The Court has ruled that British prisoner abuse in Iraq-- the UK is a member. British prisoner abuse in Iraq was not sufficiently grave enough to warrant a prosecution. In addition, Israel's attack on the Turkish flotilla that was trying to break the embargo on Gaza Strip, in which nine people died, wasn't grave enough to warrant prosecution. So there appears to be some threshold. But where that threshold is, we don't yet know because there haven't been enough cases. The pretrial chamber will decide whether admissibility has been met, whether an individual case is admissible, whether complementarity and gravity are sufficiently satisfied. For the crime of aggression, a different set of principles applies.

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In the context of Colombia being a state party to the Rome Statute and a member of the International Criminal Court ICC the Court does have jurisdicti... View the full answer