The International Criminal Court ("ICC") was founded on the principle that individuals who commit the most heinous crimes must be brought to justice and be held accountable to their crimes. However, the ICC is a treaty-based court and restricted by the normative elements in treaty- law including customary rules of international law prohibiting treaties from modifying the rights of third parties, the principle of pacta tertiis nec nocent prosunt. Increasingly, the Bush administration and other non- parties to the Rome Statute have invoked this principle to object to the prescriptive and adjudicative powers of the ICC. This powers of the ICC. This paper evaluates the jurisdictional bases of international criminal law in order to evaluate the validity of these objections. This paper describes the principle and evaluates whether in fact the Rome Statute modifies the rights of non- party states. Assuming that the principle does apply, this paper then evaluates whether there is an exception to the pacta tertiis principle. This paper concludes that no state has exclusive jurisdiction over nationals and that, in fact, the pacta tertiis principle is not invoked by the ICC's exercise of jurisdiction over non-party nationals. Even were it to apply, the ICC's jurisdictional bases reflect current norms of customary international law and are thus exceptions to the pacta tertiis principle. non-party