Malaysia and The Rome Statute of The International Criminal Court
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21776/ub.blj.2022.009.01.06Keywords:
Malaysia, ICC, Rome Statute, YDPA, Head of State, Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.Abstract
The establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) through its founding treaty, the Rome Statute has received both support and opposition from many countries. Despite working towards universal ratification or accession to the Rome Statute, Signatories and State Parties to the Rome Statute have decided not to ratify and withdraw from being Member States due to, among other reasons, the issue of immunity and criminal responsibility of the Head of State which are not in line with their respective Constitution, particularly by Malaysia. As such, this paper analyses the position of immunity of Head of State as well as the criminal responsibility of a military commander under international law, particularly under the Rome Statute and the Malaysian Constitution. Based on doctrinal analysis, this paper argues that the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (YDPA) as the Malaysian Head of State and the Commander-in-Chief of the Malaysian Armed Forces has immunity before the national court and thus, will be highly exposed to the ICC jurisdiction since complementary principle under the Rome Statute cannot be implemented. This paper concludes that as long as these contradictions have not been reconciled, it is not timely for Malaysia to be part of the ICC Membership.References
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