SYNOPSIS                     

Shot in the style of a legal thriller, the documentary “The International Criminal Court” relates how the first internationally legitimated criminal court was founded in 2002, and how it investigates appalling crimes committed by some of the world’s most ruthless war criminals.

Fifteen years ago, over 100 nations dared to undertake an experiment that had been previously unthinkable. In a conference held in Rome, they enacted the Rome Statute, which gave birth to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague in 2002. Whoever is brought to justice there is responsible for some of the most appalling crimes committed around the world. Told from the perspective of Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the film unfolds like a legal thriller, relating how the first internationally legitimated criminal court investigates war crimes from its base in The Hague. The cases include the suppression of the Arab Spring in Libya, possible crimes in the Gaza War and the recruitment of children soldiers in the Congo. 

Actress Angelina Jolie and the former Chief Prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials, Ben Ferencz, support the Court and travel to The Hague for their first case, which concerns a Congolese militia leader. They want to convince the judges – and thus the world at large – that the use of children as soldiers is a crime against humanity.  How far may the Chief Prosecutor’s team go? And can an international court function at all if powerful nations such as the U.S., China and Russia do not recognize it and know they will never be put on trial?

In the course of the film, a complex legal system is given an individual face. As suspenseful as a political thriller, THE COURT is an up-to-the-minute film that explains, moves, but ultimately lets the viewer decide.