Researcher Mathew Ituma takes us through the story of the United States' tentative support for the International Criminal Court under Clinton and its eventual "unsigning" under Bush, emphasizing the fundamental tension between national (in this case congressional) politics and international justice. Key words: Rome Statutes, International criminal court, justice, law,

The Palestinian National Authority's 2009 declaration under Article 12(3) of the Rome Statute to join the ICC presented the international court with an opportunity to implement its Statute and respond to the many UN and other reports of human rights abuses committed in Palestine since 2002. As Mahmoud Abdou argues,