The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was adopted in the year:

Question

In its second preliminary objection, Myanmar submits that The Gambia’s Application is inadmissible because The Gambia lacks standing to bring this case before the Court. In particular, Myanmar considers that only “injured States”, which Myanmar defines as States “adversely affected by an internationally wrongful act”, have standing to present a claim before the Court. In Myanmar’s view, The Gambia is not an “injured State” (a term that Myanmar appears to use interchangeably with the term “specially affected State”) and has failed to demonstrate an individual legal interest. Therefore, according to Myanmar, The Gambia lacks standing under Article IX of the Genocide Convention.
Myanmar draws a distinction between the right to invoke State responsibility under general international law and standing before the Court. It argues that, even if it were established that a “non-injured” Contracting Party to the Genocide Convention has the right to invoke another State’s responsibility for violations of the Convention, this would not necessarily entail the right to bring a case before the Court. To this end, Myanmar contends that there exists a difference between the common interest in the accomplishment of the purposes of the Genocide Convention and a State’s individual legal interest that may be enforce through the institution of proceedings before the Court. In Myanmar’s view, only States “specially affected” by an internationally wrongful act have standing to bring a claim before the Court.
Myanmar further submits that The Gambia’s claims are inadmissible in so far as they are not brought before the Court in accordance with the rule concerning the nationality of claims which, according to Myanmar, is reflected in Article 44 (a) of the International Law Commission’s Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts. Myanmar asserts that the rule concerning the nationality of claims applies to the invocation of responsibility by both “injured” and “non injured” States and irrespective of whether the obligation breached is an erga omnes partes or erga omnes obligation. Consequently, in Myanmar’s view, The Gambia lacks standing to invoke Myanmar’s responsibility.

Answer 1

A common trap in this question is mixing up when the Rome Statute was adopted with when it actually came into force, these are two different dates and the question is only asking about adoption.

1998: is when 120 states voted to adopt the Rome Statute at the Rome Conference, this is the adoption date the question is asking about.
1999: falls after adoption, during the period when states were signing on, not when the treaty text itself was adopted.
2000: is further into the signature and early ratification phase, still not the adoption year.
2001: is closer to when ratifications were building toward the sixty needed for the Statute to take effect, the Statute eventually entered into force in 2002, but that is a separate milestone from adoption.

The correct answer is 1998, the year the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court was adopted.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was adopted in the year:

The Correct Option is A

Solution and Explanation

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