In this paper, our focus will be on the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) jurisdiction in the context of the complementarity principle. The subject of the jurisdiction, that is, crimes within the jurisdiction of the court, was not dealt with in detail while we aim to critically examine how the courts use their jurisdiction against the national powers of the states and what kind of mechanism is accepted in this regard. It has been argued that the jurisdictional relationship between the court and state parties has a horizontal framework. That is, national systems are prior, but international institutions might take the jurisdiction over when they (national systems) purely fail. Since the relationship between national states and international jurisdictions is not vertical, the principle of universal jurisdiction has not been preferred for the ICC. However, this required cooperation between states and international jurisdictions such as the ICC in criminal matters to prevent major international crimes.