Jan 29 (Reuters) - The International Criminal Court (ICC) will decide on Monday whether there is enough evidence to try Congolese militiaman Thomas Lubanga for using children as soldiers in what would be the new court's first trial. A decision to confirm charges and launch a trial would be a major landmark for the ICC that started work in 2002. Here are some key facts on the Hague-based court: * The United Nations has ad hoc tribunals dealing with abuses in former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone but the ICC is the first permanent court set up to try individuals for genocide, war crimes and other major human rights violations. * The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was established on July 17, 1998, when 120 states participating in a conference on the court adopted the treaty. * The statute needed a minimum of 60 ratifications to come into force, which it reached in April 2002 and the treaty entered into force on July 1, 2002. The treaty has been ratified by 104 countries so far. * The ICC launched its first investigations in 2004, into crimes in Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, and issued its first arrest warrants in 2005 for five leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, accused of stoking 20 years of conflict. The governments of both countries had asked the ICC to investigate. * The court only has jurisdiction with respect to crimes committed after July 1, 2002, in countries that have ratified its treaty. However, the ICC can also prosecute if the Security Council refers a case to it regarding crimes committed in a country that is not a signatory to the treaty. * The U.N. Security Council made its first referral in March 2005, when it asked the court to investigate suspected war crimes in Sudan's Darfur in what was seen as a major victory for supporters of the ICC. * The United States has spurned the ICC and has lobbied other nations to do so too, or at least exempt U.S. nationals from prosecution. But Washington abstained from the Security Council vote on Darfur after winning guarantees that its citizens in Sudan would be exempt from ICC prosecution in what was seen as a softening of its opposition to the court. * The ICC is separate from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the highest legal authority of the United Nations known as the World Court which is also based in The Hague and which was set up in 1946 to resolve disputes between states. Sources: Reuters, ICC ( www.icc-cpi.int )
