The International Criminal Court (ICC), on which US President Donald Trump has imposed sanctions, seeks to investigate and try the world's biggest atrocities.
Here are five things to know about the court based in the Dutch city of The Hague, which has made only 11 convictions since being set up 23 years ago.
- US, Russia among big absentees -
A total of 125 countries have ratified the court's founding Rome Statute, meaning they recognise its jurisdiction, but there are some conspicuous absences, notably the United States and Russia, along with China, Israel and Myanmar.
It was set up in 2002 to try alleged cases of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and, since 2017, crimes of aggression, when member states are unable or unwilling to do so.
The last to join on January 1, 2025, was Ukraine.
The ICC can pursue nationals of non-member states for crimes committed on the soil of a member country or a non-member that recognises its jurisdiction.
The UN Security Council can also call on the court to investigate potentially serious international crimes, as for instance in Libya and Sudan's Darfur region.
- Eleven convictions -
The ICC does not have its own police force, and its investigations take a long time.
It has so far brought in 11 convictions, all in Africa. They include former militia leaders from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Thomas Lubanga, Germain Katanga and Bosco Ntaganda, who received the longest jail sentence of 30 years.
The last conviction, on November 20, 2024, was a 10-year prison sentence for a Malian jihadist, "Al Hassan".
- Failures and fugitives -
The court has been weakened by a string of setbacks and spectacular acquittals.
Cases against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his vice president Ruto over post-election violence in 2007-8 collapsed in 2014 and 2016.
The four acquittals announced to date include former Democratic Republic of Congo vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba on appeal over crimes in the Central African Republic, and Ivory Coast's former president Laurent Gbagbo.
Former Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir has been on the ICC's wanted list for genocide and crimes against humanity in the western province of Darfur for more than a decade. Arrested by the Sudanese army in 2019, he has still not been handed over.
The son of former Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, Seif al-Islam Kadhafi, has been wanted by the court on war crimes charges for over a decade but remains out of the court's reach.
- Arrest warrants against Putin, Netanyahu -
Out of 60 arrest warrants delivered since 2002 by the ICC only 21 have been executed.
In March 2023 the court announced an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin is accused of war crimes for the alleged illegal deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children since the Russian invasion in February 2022.
ICC member Mongolia however warmly hosted Putin in September 2024 and did not arrest him.
The court in November also issued arrest warrants for Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defence minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas's military chief Mohammed Deif -- whose death was confirmed by Hamas in January.
- Dispute with Trump -
The ICC infuriated US president Donald Trump's first term administration in March 2020 by authorising an investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity by US forces serving in Afghanistan from 2003.
Washington imposed sanctions on ICC officials in protest but Trump's successor Joe Biden lifted them in April 2021.
The investigation, which also included violence by the Taliban and Islamic State (IS) group, was later suspended at the Afghan government's request. But after the Taliban takeover, the court's new Prosecutor Karim Khan relaunched it.
This renewed investigation has focused on violence by the Taliban and IS, to the exclusion of alleged US atrocities, provoking the anger of some rights groups.
In January 2025, the court announced it was seeking arrest warrants against Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and the president of the Afghan Supreme Court Abdul Hakim Haqqani for the persecution of women.