The Crime of Aggression before the First Review of the ICC Statute

Leiden Journal of International Law

Volumn 20, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 851-865

  Kress, Claus ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF COLOGNE   (Germany)

Author keywords

crime of aggression; First Review Conference on the Statute of the International Criminal Court; International Criminal Court; international criminal law; international law on the use of force; United Nations Security Council; veto power of the permanent members of the UN Security Council

Indexed keywords

EID: 85009568153     PISSN: 09221565     EISSN: 14789698     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0922156507004499     Document Type: Article

References (59)

1. (1997) 56 Cambridge Law Journal (1997), 329, at 335.
2. for the historic background of that title, see R. O'Keefe, The ILC's Contribution to International Criminal Law, (2006) 49 German Yearbook of International Law 201, at 218.
3. ‘The Rome Statute and the Crime of Aggression: A Gordian Knot in Search of a Sword’, (2003) 14 Criminal Law Forum 1, at 14. This statement is correct in its reference to the grown importance of international human rights standards. But Schuster is wrong to imply that, as a result, the value of international peace and security has lost its significance. While the latter remains a core international value to be protected by a rule of international criminal law, the coming into existence of international human rights standards adds another dimension to this rule in that soldiers rights to life and physical integrity enter into the picture.
4. Onthenon-inclusion of anumberof so called ‘treaty crimes’ or ‘transnational crimes’, A.Zimmermannstates: ‘The main reason was that not all of the conventions providing the basis for such ‘treaty crimes’ have found sufficient international acceptance and thus could not be considered as reflecting customary international law.’ ‘Article 5’, in O. Triffterer (ed.), Commentary on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1999),
5. See e.g. K. Ambos, ‘Strafrecht und Krieg: strafbare Beteiligung der Bundesregierung am Irak-Krieg?’, in J. Arnold et al. (eds.) Menschengerechtes Strafrecht: Festschrift fü r Albin Eser zum 70. Geburtstag (2005), 674;
6. M. C. Bassiouni and B. B. Ferencz, International Criminal Law: Crimes, 2nd edn, in M. C. Bassiouni (ed.), International Criminal Law (1999), 313;
7. I. Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law (2003), 561;
8. A. Cassese, International Criminal Law (2003), 113;
9. Y. Dinstein, War, Aggression and Self-Defence (2001), 113;
10. M. Dumée, ‘Le crime d'agression’, in H. Ascensio, E. Decaux, and A. Pellet (eds.), Droit International Pénal (2000), 251;
11. G. Gaja, ‘The Long Journey towards Repressing Aggression’, in A. Cassese, P. Gaeta, and J. R. W. D. Jones (eds.), The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court: A Commentary (2002), Vol. 1, 430;
12. E. Greppi, ‘The Evolution of Individual Criminal Responsibility under international law’, 835 International Review of the Red Cross 531;
13. R. L. Griffiths, ‘International Law, the Crime of Aggression and the Ius ad Bellum’, (2002) 2 International Criminal Law Review 301, at 308;
14. M. Hummrich, Der völkerrechtliche Straftatbestand der Aggression (2001), 90;
15. C. Kreß, ‘Strafrecht und Angriffskrieg im Licht “des Falles Irak”’ (2003) 115 Zeitschrift fü r die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft 294, at
16. 295; T. Meron, ‘Defining Aggression for the International Criminal Court’, (2001) 1 Suffolk Transnational Law Review 1, at 6;
17. I. K. Mü ller-Schieke, ‘Defining the Crime of Aggression under the Statute of the International Criminal Court’, (2001) 14 LJIL 409, at 414;
18. D. D. Nsereko, ‘Defining the Crime of Aggression: An Important Agenda Item for the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court’, (2003) Acta Juridica 265, at 266;
19. L. Sadat and S. R. Carden, ‘The New International Criminal Court: An Uneasy Revolution’, 88 Georgetown Law Journal 381, at 437 (n. 341);
20. M. Aziz Shukri, ‘Will Aggressors Ever Be Tried before the ICC?’, in M. Politi and G. Nesi (eds.), The International Criminal Court and the Crime of Aggression (2004), 33 at 35;
21. O. Triffterer, ‘Establishment of the Court’, in O. Triffterer (ed.), Commentary on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1999), 40;
22. G. Werle, Principles of International Criminal Law (2005), 393;
23. G. Westdickenberg and O. Fixson, ‘Das Verbrechen der Aggression im Römischen Statut des Internationalen Strafgerichtshofes’, in J. Abr. Frowein et al. (eds.), Verhandeln fü r den Frieden: Liber Amicorum Tono Eitel (2003), 500;
24. E. Wilmshurst, ‘Definition of the Crime of Aggression: State Responsibility or Individual Criminal Responsibility?’, in Politi and Nesi, The International Criminal Court and the Crime of Aggression, at 95. For a different view see Schuster, note 3, at 13. The correct majority position of the customary status of the crime of aggression can best be explained on the basis of ‘modern positivism’
25. (see B. Simma and A. Paulus, ‘The Responsibility of Individuals for Human Rights Abuses in Internal Conflicts’, (1999) 93 AJIL 302, at 306) that accounts formuch of the recent development of international criminal law (for an analysis of the international criminalization of war crimes committed in non-international armed conflicts,
26. see C. Kress, ‘War Crimes Committed in Non-international Armed Conflicts and the Emerging System of International Criminal Justice’, (2000) 30 Israel Yearbook on Human Rights 103, at 104).
27. With respect to the crime of aggression, it is therefore a little bit misleading to speak of the inclusion of a ‘new’ crime as Rolf Fife does in ‘Criminalizing Individual Acts of Aggression by States’, in M. Bergsmo (ed.), Human Rights and Criminal Justice for the Downtrodden. Essays in Honour of Asbjorn Eide (2003), 73;
28. for a comprehensive account of the history of the debate on the crime of aggression see O. Solera, Defining the Crime of Aggression (2007).
29. For a monumental study of the aggression debate from 1920 to 1975, see B. B. Ferencz, Defining International Aggression - The Search for World Peace: A Documentary History and Analysis, 2 vols. (1975).
30. For a useful and more recent account, see United Nations (ed.), Historical Review of Developments Relating to Aggression (2003).
31. ‘Rethinking Aggression as a Crime and Formulating Its Elements: The Final Work-Product of the Preparatory Commission for the International Criminal Court’, (2002) 15 LJIL 859, at 886.
32. see K. J. Heller, ‘Retreat from Nuremberg: The Leadership Requirement in the Crime of Aggression’, (2007) 18 EJIL (forthcoming);
33. see also N. Strapatsas, ‘Is Article 25 (3) of the ICC Statute Compatible with the “Crime of Aggression?”’, (2007) 19 Florida Journal of International Law (forthcoming).
34. see C. Stahn, ‘International Law at a Crossroads? The impact of September 11’, (2002) 62 Zeitschrift fü r öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht 183, at 250.
35. This commentator has set out some arguments in support of those doubts in C. Kress, ‘The German Chief Federal Prosecutor's Decision Not to Investigate the Alleged Crime of Preparing Aggression against Iraq’, (2004) 2 Journal of International Criminal Justice 245, at 249;
36. see N. Strapatsas, ‘Rethinking General Assembly Resolution 3314 (1974) as a Basis for the Definition of Aggression under the Rome Statute of the ICC’, in O. Olusanya (ed.), Rethinking International Criminal Law: The Substantive Part (2007), 156.
37. The literature on the topic is abundant; for just two important studies arriving at opposite conclusions, see S. Chesterman, Just War or Just Peace? Humanitarian Intervention and International Law (2001); and
38. C. Greenwood, ‘Humanitarian Intervention: The Case of Kosovo’, (2000) 10 Finnish Yearbook of International Law 141.
39. For a recent summary of the debate, see M. Fröhlich, ‘Responsibility to Protect - Zur Herausbildung einer neuen Norm der Friedenssicherung’, in J. Varwick and A. Zimmermann (eds.), Die Reform der Vereinten Nationen - Bilanz und Perspektiven (2006), 167;
40. C. Stahn, ‘Responsibility to Protect: Political Rhetoric or Emerging Legal Norm’, (2007) 101 AJIL 99.
41. For a detailed account of the negotiations leading to the final vote on the ICC's jurisdiction regime, see H. P. Kaul and C. Kress, ‘Jurisdiction and Cooperation in the Rome Statute on the International Criminal Court: Principles and Compromises’, (1999) 2 Yearbook on International Humanitarian Law, 143.
42. Reprinted in M.C. Bassiouni (ed.), The Legislative History of the International Criminal Court:An Article-by-Article Evolution of the Statute (2005), 130.
43. ‘Obstacles in the Way of an International Criminal Court’, (1997) 56 Cambridge Law Journal 329, at 336;
44. For thelatestthoroughandconvincingstudy, see C. Mc Dougall, ‘When Lawand Reality Clash-the Imperative of Compromise in the Context of the Accumulated Evil of the Whole: Conditions for the Exercise of the International Criminal Court's Jurisdiction over the Crime of Aggression’, (2007) 7 International Criminal Law Review, 277, at 279 ff.;
45. see M. Stein, ‘The Security Council, The International Criminal Court, and the Crime of Aggression: How Exclusive is the Security Council's Power to Determine Aggression?’, (2005) 16 Indiana International and Comparative Law Review 5.
46. L. Condorelli, ‘Conclusions Générales’, in Politi and Nesi,
47. P. Escarameia, ‘The ICC and the Security Council on Aggression: Overlapping Competencies?’
48. G. Gaja, ‘The Respective Roles of the ICC and the Security Council in Determining the Existence of Aggression’, in Politi and Nesi,
49. C. Kress, ‘Versailles, Nuremberg, The Hague: Germany and International Criminal Law’, (2005) 40 The International Lawyer 15, at 38;
50. M. E. Kurth, Das Verhältnis des Internationalen Strafgerichtshofes zum UN Sicherheitsrat (2006), 216;
51. M. Lehto, ‘The ICC and the Security Council: About the Argument of Politicization’, in Politi and Nesi,
52. A. Paulus, ‘Peace through Justice? The Future of the Crime of Aggression in a Time of Crisis’, (2004) 50 Wayne Law Review 1, at 21;
53. L. J. Springrose, ‘Aggression as a Core Crime in the Rome Statute Establishing an International Criminal Court’, (1999) 5 St. Louis-Warsaw Transatlantic Law Journal 167;
54. S. M. Yengejeh, ‘Reflections on the Role of the Security Council in Determining an Act of Aggression’, in Politi and Nesi,
55. see B. B. Ferencz, ‘Enabling the International Criminal Court to Punish Aggression’, (2006) 6 Washington University Global Studies Law Review 1, at 13.
56. see F. Berman, ‘The Relationship between the International Criminal Court and the Security Council’, in H. A. M. von Hebel, J. G. Lammers, and J. J. Schukkina (eds.), Reflections on the International Criminal Court: Essays in Honour of Adriaan Bos (1999), 178.
57. At the American Bar Association's Commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials, November 11, 2005, Georgetown School of Law, Washington, DC, (2006) 40 The International Lawyer 5.
58. J. N. Boehring, ‘Aggression, International Law and the ICC: An Argument for the Withdrawal of Aggression from the Rome Statute’, (2005) 43 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, 557, at 610 ff.;
59. for a less radical, though sceptical, position, see T. Stein, ‘Aggression als Verbrechen im Statut des Internationalen Strafgerichtshofs - “A Bridge too Far”?’, in H. Mü ller-Dietz et al. (eds.), Festschrift fü r Heike Jung (2007), 935, at 944.