linguistic:paraphrasing
Formal proposal and establishment

In June 1989, the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, A. N. R. Robinson, revived the idea of a permanent international criminal court by proposing the creation of tribunal to address the illegal drug trade. In response, the General Assembly tasked the ILC with once again drafting a statute for a permanent court.

While work began on the draft, the UN Security Council established two ad hoc tribunals in the early 1990s: The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, created in 1993 in response to large-scale atrocities committed by armed forces during the Yugoslav Wars, and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, created in 1994 following the Rwandan genocide. The creation of these tribunals further highlighted to many the need for a permanent international criminal court.

In 1994, the ILC presented its final draft statute for the International Criminal Court to the General Assembly and recommended that a conference be convened to negotiate a treaty that would serve as the Court's statute.

To consider major substantive issues in the draft statute, the General Assembly established the Ad Hoc Committee on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court, which met twice in 1995. After considering the Committee's report, the General Assembly created the Preparatory Committee on the Establishment of the ICC to prepare a consolidated draft text.

From 1996 to 1998, six sessions of the Preparatory Committee were held at the United Nations headquarters in New York City, during which NGOs provided input and attended meetings under the umbrella organisation of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC). In January 1998, the Bureau and coordinators of the Preparatory Committee convened for an Inter-Sessional meeting in Zutphen in the Netherlands to technically consolidate and restructure the draft articles into a draft.

Finally, the General Assembly convened a conference in Rome in June 1998, with the aim of finalizing the treaty to serve as the Court's statute. On 17 July 1998, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was adopted by a vote of 120 to seven, with 21 countries abstaining. The seven countries that voted against the treaty were China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar, the U.S., and Yemen.

Israel's opposition to the treaty stemmed from the inclusion in the list of war crimes "the action of transferring population into occupied territory".

The UN General Assembly voted on 9 December 1999 and again on 12 December 2000 to endorse the ICC.

Following 60 ratifications, the Rome Statute entered into force on 1 July 2002 and the International Criminal Court was formally established.

The first bench of 18 judges was elected by the Assembly of States Parties in February 2003. They were sworn in at the inaugural session of the Court on 11 March 2003.

The Court issued its first arrest warrants on 8 July 2005, and the first pre-trial hearings were held in 2006.

The Court issued its first judgment in 2012 when it found Congolese rebel leader Thomas Lubanga Dyilo guilty of war crimes related to using child soldiers. Lubanga was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

In 2010, the states parties of the Rome Statute held the first Review Conference of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in Kampala, Uganda. The Review Conference led to the adoption of two resolutions that amended the crimes under the jurisdiction of the Court. Resolution 5 amended Article 8 on war crimes, criminalizing the use of certain kinds of weapons in non-international conflicts whose use was already forbidden in international conflicts. Resolution 6, pursuant to Article 5(2) of the Statute, provided the definition and a procedure for jurisdiction over the crime of aggression.