Talk:States parties to the Rome Statute

Article title

I don't want to change this without discussing it first, but the plural of “state party” is “states parties”, and it's “party to”, not “party of”.

Can we move this page to States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court?

Maybe with redirects from States Parties to the Rome Statute and States Parties to the International Criminal Court?

Sideshow Bob Roberts 03:38, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Sideshow Bob Roberts 13:42, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Admitedly this is correct, but the new title sounds a bit unwieldy to me. On the basis that "Names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for ... a general audience over specialists" can I suggest Member States of the International Criminal Court instead? I'll have a look for other similar articles AndrewRT(Talk) 21:49, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The only example I could find was List of Kyoto Protocol signatories AndrewRT(Talk) 22:13, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, the current title is a little unwieldy and it's not immediately obvious what a "state party" is. I don't like it and I'm open to suggestions. As far as I can tell though, "states parties" is the only term in general use.

States don't become "member states" of the ICC (unlike, say, the African Union or the United Nations). If you search the web for the terms "member state" and "International Criminal Court" together [1], it's pretty clear that no-one apart from Wikipedia refers to member states of the International Criminal Court. Regardless of how we feel about the term "states parties", it's not Wikipedia's place to coin a new term.

"Rome Statute signatories" doesn't really work either, since most readers are interested in which states are parties to the statute, rather than which ones have signed it.

"States Parties to the Rome Statute" is an option which is in general use and is less unwieldy than the current title. On the other hand, it doesn't make it clear that the article is about the ICC.

How about "States Parties to the International Criminal Court"? Sideshow Bob Roberts 00:37, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that "signatories" doesn't realy work - even the article List of Kyoto Protocol signatories talks about those who have ratified aswell as those who have joined. I still think that if you went up to Joe Public in the street and started talking about "States Parties" he wouldn't have a clue what you were talking about. "Member countries" or "Member states" is more intuitive. This is regularly used for other multilateral organisations like the EU, ASEAN, OECD, CITES, IEA, FAO, IBRD, IADB, European Patent Organisation, UNESCO etc. Google shows up plenty of results for ICC "member countries" - [2], most of which dont relate to wikipedia. Therefore can I change my proposal to Member countries of the International Criminal Court, or do you still prefer state parties? AndrewRT(Talk) 21:21, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I still prefer states parties but I'm not entirely happy with either and I won't revert if you want to change it.

To sum up, then, we have two proposals:

"member countries", which is more readily understandable to a general audience, as Wikipedia:Naming conventions demands; and

"states parties", which is the official term and (as far as I can tell) the only one used by the Court, by the states parties themselves and in the academic literature.

For whatever it's worth, "States parties to the International Criminal Court" returns about 17,300 Google hits, "Member states of the International Criminal Court" gets 9, and "Member countries of the International Criminal Court" gets 3.

The analogy with other institutions like the EU isn't really appropriate because "member states" is the official term used by those institutions, their members, and their founding treaties. The Rome Statute, on the other hand, doesn't refer to "member states", and the Court studiously avoids the term. That's why I wince when I hear it.

How about:

"The states parties to the International Criminal Court (sometimes known as member countries of the International Criminal Court) are those countries that have ratified or acceded to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court" ? I suppose that doesn't really resolve the confusion in other articles that link here though. Sideshow Bob Roberts 01:16, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

105 States Parties?

This article and the main ICC article currently state that there are 105 states parties to the Rome Statute. This is not strictly true: Japan acceded to the Statute on 17 July 2007, but the Statute won't enter into force for Japan until 1 October. As such, Japan is not currently a State Party. Crimes committed by Japanese nationals or on Japanese territory before 1 October will not fall under the ICC's jurisdiction (barring, of course, a Security Council referral or a declaration by the Japanese government, etc).

I'm aware that the UN treaties website says there are 105 Parties to the Rome Statute, but this ICC press release is more specific: "On 1st October 2007, when the Statute will enter into force for Japan, the total number of States Parties to the Rome Statute will be 105." Moreover, the ICC's list of States Parties doesn't include Japan.

Can I suggest we reword it to "As of July 2007, 104 states are party to the Rome Statute. Japan will become a state party on 1 October 2007, bringing the total to 105." ?

This might be a little unwieldy (and I might be accused of nit-picking) but I think it's important we get basic figures like the number of states parties correct. Sideshow Bob Roberts 00:47, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That suggested change is fine with me—I made the original change on the International Criminal Court page, which someone picked up on and used to edit the page here, but my original edit was simply based on a news article I read and then I confirmed it through the UN Treaty source, as you said. I didn't look into the matter any deeper. –SESmith 02:14, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps also the map should be revereted back to the one with an uncolored Japan—or at least the map too should be labeled to indicate these are the state parties as of 1 Oct. –SESmith 02:16, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've reverted to the original map. Unfortunately, this means we lose all the other changes you've made to the map, but I'm totally clueless about images and I don't know how to change to an uncolored Japan while preserving your other changes. Sorry! Sideshow Bob Roberts 00:59, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, that's fine. We can just change it to the new one I made on 1 Oct. If I can get around to it perhaps I'll do up an interim one, but it would involve reloading a new map, so .... –SESmith 07:00, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I just put the new map back up without Japan colored. Uncoloring Japan was easier than I thought, so it was no problem. –SESmith 07:11, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Same problem again. This time, Madagascar's coloured green, though it won't become a state party until 1 June. We should either temporarily change Madagascar back to white or explain clearly in our captions (in each article) that the map shows the states parties as of 1 June 2008 (provided no other country ratifies the treaty before 1 April, etc). I prefer the first option. Sideshow Bob Roberts (talk) 14:29, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Map Error: Chad

Chad is not colored on the map but it is listed as a member in the article, somebody please correct this.

(Chad is above Central African Republic, west of Sudan, below Libya, and east of Niger) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.95.133.192 (talk) 06:33, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Now done (not by me!) AndrewRT(Talk) 23:32, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

War crimes out outs

Do we detail anywhere whcih countries have opted out of war crimes jurisdiction? If so this source [3] may be usable Colombia's position. AndrewRT(Talk) 21:56, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Removed line about bipartisan consensus in U.S senate against Rome Statute

I removed the following line: There is presently bipartisan consensus that the United States does not intend to ratify the Rome Statute.

My reason for this is threefold:

Democrats have 58+ votes in the Senate as of Mar 2009 and when it was put to a vote early on, the vote was 55 to 45 in favor in 1994 (see "SEC. 170A. POLICY WITH RESPECT TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF AN INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT." at http://www.usasurvival.org/ck09.05.07.shtml). Only the need for 66 votes prevented the Rome Statute from getting past the U.S. senate and a majority for the ICC is the opposite of a consensus of anything against it.
In 2005, Democratic Policy Committee saw opposition of the ICC as one of the failings of the Bush administration (see "Nominate for U.N. Ambassador a diplomat committed to improving the U.S. relationship with the international community." http://dpc.senate.gov/dpc-new.cfm?doc_name=sr-109-1-15).
If the statement didn't say "bipartisan consensus", but perhaps merely "bipartisan representation", it might be able to stay, but to use a strong word like "consensus" without any evidence of the sort, seems dishonest.

--Fandyllic (talk) 03:12, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]