Aggression

Vol. 41, Nos. 2 & 3 (2009)

 

Terrorist Financing

Vol. 41, No. 1 (2009)

 

Security Detention

Vol. 40, No. 3 (2009)

 

The Genocide Convention

Vol. 40, Nos. 1 & 2 (2008)

 

Religion and Terror

Vol. 39, No. 3 (2007-08)

 

Lessons From the Saddam Trial

Vol. 39, Nos. 1 & 2 (2006-07)

 

The Fifth Plague

Vol. 38, Nos. 3 & 4 (2006-07)

 

International Justice and Shifting Paradigms

Vol. 38, No. 2 (2006-07)

 

Rebuilding Nation Building

Vol. 38, No. 1 (2006)

 

Torture and the War on Terror

Vol. 37, Nos. 2 & 3 (2006)

 

 

 

ENDING IMPUNITY FOR THE CRIME OF AGGRESSION

 

Benjamin B. Ferencz

 

Jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court over the crime of aggression has been deferred for reasons that are not persuasive. Aggression has already been adequately defined. The UN Security Council and the International Criminal Court are linked by the existing ICC Statute adopted in Rome. Compromises already reflected in the Rome Statute will be difficult to revise by new amendments. Ambiguities are best resolved by ICC Judges. Nuremberg's condemnation of "the supreme international crime" should not be repudiated. The ICC must be enabled to deter aggressions by bringing transgressors to justice.

AGGRESSION HAS ALREADY BEEN ADEQUATELY DEFINED
A. From Nuremberg in 1946 to Rome in 1998

The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (IMT), composed of esteemed judges from the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union and the United States, acknowledged that ex post facto punishment was abhorrent to the law of all civilized nations. They observed that the general principles of justice should be respected but not followed blindly.

The tribunal was explicit that declaring aggression to be "the supreme international crime" was not an exercise of arbitrary power on the part of the victors, as has often been alleged, but the reflection of an evolutionary process . . .

 

41 CASE W. RES. J. INT’L L. 281 (2009).

 

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