International court says will not investigate 2010 attacks on South Korea

The court opened a preliminary examination into the two episodes, in which a total of 50 people died, to establish if there were grounds for proceeding to a full investigation.

Activists have long sought a way of making North Korea, which as one of the world's most politically isolated countries does not accept the ICC's jurisdiction, answer for what many agencies including the United Nations say is an exceptionally poor human rights record.

An attack by North Korea on an ICC member country like South Korea could potentially give that country jurisdiction over any crimes committed during that specific incident.

But prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said she had no grounds to proceed in the case of the South Korean warship Cheonan, which sank with the loss of 46 sailors after being torpedoed, since the vessel was a legitimate military target.

Although two civilians and two military personnel died in the shelling, later that year, of South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island, Bensouda said there was no evidence civilians had been deliberately targeted

"Even though the shelling resulted, regrettably, in civilian casualties, the information available does not provide a reasonable basis to believe that the attack was intentionally directed against civilian objects," she said.

The two countries have been in a formal state of ceasefire since the end of the 1950-53 Korean war, and their navies regularly face off in deliberate shows of force around Yeonpyeong island, which is just 10 km from North Korea.

Bensouda said she had made her decision on the basis of information submitted by governments, individuals and non-governmental organisations. North Korea had not cooperated with her examination, she said.