The creation of the International Criminal Court

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 25 August 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

In 1998, at a conference organised by the United Nations, a blueprint was devised for what would be the world's first permanent International Criminal Court.

Judge Phillipe Kirsch chaired the Rome conference that led to the formation of the court. He tells Gill Kearsley about the negotiations, which he describes as the most difficult professional thing he ever did.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest; the disastrous D-Day rehearsal; and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.

(Photo: International Criminal Court. Credit: Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Rory Stewart and I grew up wanting to be a hero and I'm still fascinated by the ideas of heroism.
0:08.9	In my new series, I'm taking in the long sweep of history from Achilles to Zelensky and asking, what is a hero?
0:16.1	Simply doing your job, being a decent human being.
0:20.0	A true hero is someone who just kind of shines by
0:23.1	their own light and that light is to be recognised by others. The Long History of Heroism
0:27.7	with me, Rory Stewart. Listen on BBC Sounds. Hello and welcome to witness history. I'm Jill Kursley. And this is the podcast that takes you back to a key moment in history and we bring it all to live through incredible archive and the amazing memories of a key witness. The moment I'm taking you back to today was in 1998 and the creation of
0:57.1	the International Criminal Court, a global court that has the power to bring prosecutions
1:03.6	for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Belgian-Canadian Judge Philippe Kirsch
1:12.8	chaired the conference that led to the formation of the court.
1:16.7	There were many people who were really enthusiastic about this exercise,
1:20.8	but those who were not were very, very difficult,
1:24.0	and it became quite personal at times.
1:26.8	By the time the conference ended, I was quite
1:29.7	convinced that it would be an important part of history. An international criminal court,
1:36.2	ICC, was an idea that had been around for decades. Kofi Annan, the then United Nations
1:43.0	Secretary General, explained why the court was needed.
1:46.8	At the end of the Second World War, and following the exterminations of the Holocaust,
1:52.9	we all said never again. This should never happen again. But it has. In Cambodia,
2:00.7	in Bosnia, Herzegovina and in Rwanda.
2:04.0	And I think the international community realizes that this international criminal court,
2:11.4	a permanent international criminal court, is a missing link in the international juridical system.
2:17.4	There had already been many discussions to try to make it happen. Court is a missing link in the international juridical system.
	...

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