THE LEGAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE ROME STATUTE ON KENYA AS A SIGNITORY STATE

ABSTRACT The study sought to establish the legal implications of the Rome statute on Kenya as a signatory

state. The major role of the ICC is to serve the international community and it was established by

the Rome Statute to try the perpetrators of serious crimes against the human population. It seeks

to end impunity of perpetrators of crimes against humanity by providing justice to the victims of

such occurrence. The justice provided at the international criminal comt (ICC) is by Tar believed

to surpass the jurisdictions of the local national comts that is marred by political manipulation.

To achieve these objectives the researcher sampled the study population which involved the

general public in Kenya. The researcher selected a sample size of (50) fifty respondents from a

target population of (500) five hundred respondents

The major finding of the study was that the ICC prosecutions are our best chance of knowing the

truth about the 2007 PEV. The tmth that will come out of the ICC prosecutions will work against

the ever-increasing narratives of inter-ethnic grievance and mistmst that tend to be the basis on

which political competition for Kenya's state power has been conducted since the introduction of

Multi-party politics this strategy led to the 1992, 1997 and 2007 Post Election Violence (PEV),

and we cannot afford to go into another election without getting dealing with it. The ICC

prosecutions start Kenya on the journey of seeking justice for the victims of all Post Election

Violence to-date, because it debunks the myth that there exists any Kenyan who is above the law.

This is necessary in a democratic state especially if we are ever to locally prosecute· other crimes

inherent to Post Election Violence in future. Our current justice systems are not able, ready

and/or willing to prosecute PEV pe1petrators, as has clearly been shown by the fact that in three