Mexico became the 100th nation on Friday to ratify the 1998 treaty creating the International Criminal Court, the world's first permanent tribunal to try individuals for heinous crimes, Reuters reported. Mexico's U.N. ambassador, Juan Manual Gomez Roble, and the country's Foreign Ministry legal adviser, Joel Hernandez, deposited ratification documents approved by the government and parliament, the United Nations announced. The International Criminal Court was set up to prosecute individuals accused of the world's worst atrocities -- genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity -- in a belated effort to fulfill the promise of the Nuremberg trials, which tried Nazi leaders after World War Two. The court's treaty, signed by 135 countries, needed a minimum of 60 ratifications to come into force, which it reached in April 2002.
