Referral of the situation to the International Criminal Court by the government

Referral by a State Party is one of the methods set forth in Article 13 of the Statute of the ICC. The State Party may refer the situation to a prosecutor who has appeared to have committed one or more crimes under the jurisdiction of the Court. It should be noted, however, that the initiation of the investigation by the relevant government is a high priority, and therefore the drafters of the Divine Statute sought to prevent the perpetrators of international crimes from being included. The referral of the situation by the State party to the Court Prosecutor is of great merit and will undoubtedly contribute to the efficiency of the Court.The main focus of this research is on state referrals and not other methods of referral. In order to have a comprehensive analysis of government referrals, it is inevitable to examine the formal and substantive issues associated with it. For this purpose, basic issues such as referral, referrer, referral rituals, reference works, and finally the possibility of returning the referenced status will be studied.This research will analyze state's referral of status in the Divine Statute in the light of its practical application. The Court's main approach and priority is to prosecute international crimes by national courts. The foreseeable principle of supplementary jurisdiction in the Divisional Statute implies the validity of such a priority. State statistics on cases referred to the Court indicate that this method is favorable to other methods of referral in the Statute.