The establishment of international criminal jurisdictions such as the International Criminal Court ('ICC') presents new challenges for legal practitioners as well as scholars in their legal research. High-quality legal commentaries can be of great assistance for both practitioners and scholars. The Commentary on the Law of the International Criminal Court ('CLICC') has been designed with inspiration from commentaries on domestic law as well as international law. It now covers both the ICC Statute and Rules of Procedure and Evidence. Its basic idea is to address legal questions and issues in a clear and unconvoluted manner. It not only discusses ordinary and recurrent questions of interpretation and application of international criminal law. When legal issues are more complicated, CLICC informs on relevant preparatory works, case law, expert views and scholarship which may be consulted for further research. This is the first of two volumes on the ICC Statute. It contains contributions by 32 experts from diverse backgrounds: Mohamed Abdou, Camilla Adell, Marina Aksenova, Anna Andersson, Marie Aronsson-Storrier, Laurel Baig, Ruth Bonnevalle-Kok, Mohamed E. Badar, Kirsten Bowman, Yassin Brunger, Antonio Coco, Gerard Conway, Caroline Ehlert, Ola Engdahl, Viljam Engström, Matthew Gillett, Douglas Guilfoyle, Nikola R. Hajdin, Mikaela Heikkilä, Nina H.B. Jørgensen, Mark Klamberg, Geert-Jan A. Knoops, Linnea Kortfält, Letizia Lo Giacco, Sally Longworth, Julie McBride, Yvonne McDermott Rees, Jonas Nilsson, Noëlle Quénivet, Maria Sjöholm, Ignaz Stegmiller and Melinda Taylor.