On June 26,2002 the German Federal Parliament passed an Act to Introduce the Code of Crimes Against International Law (“the Act”), which subsequently entered into force on June 30,2002, the day after its promulgation in the German Federal Law Gazette. Article 1 of the Act contains the Code of Crimes Against International Law (“CCAIL”), which provides the legal framework for German courts to prosecute crimes for which the International Criminal Court (“ICC”) is competent, namely, genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes (“the core crimes”). The remaining Articles of the Act contain, inter alia, amendments to the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure, the primary purpose of which is to harmonize the general criminal law with the CCAIL.
For a better understanding of the significance of the CCAIL on the national and international plane, it is important to recall briefly the legal situation in Germany regarding the prosecution of the core crimes prior to the entry into force of the Act
