CYIL 2015

CAROLLANN BRAUM

CYIL 6 ȍ2015Ȏ

criminal enterprises. She is currently a PhD student at Charles University, studying

International Criminal Law, and lives in Prague with her family. Carollann teaches

law at the John H. Carey School of Law at Anglo-American University and the

School of Business at Prague College.

1. Introduction

After years of debate, discussion and indecision, in June 2010, the international

community finally came to a consensus on a definition on the crime of aggression

and the requirements for the International Criminal Court to have jurisdiction over

it.

While the crime of aggression had been originally included in the Rome Statute

of the International Criminal Court in 1998

, the states parties had been unable

to agree on a definition which would allow the Prosecutor of the International

Criminal Court to investigate and prosecute high level officials for the crime.

At this

point, the States Parties agreed to include the crime of aggression among the four

prosecutable crimes; however, it was to remain inactive until a definition could be

agreed upon.

It took over a decade, at the Review Conference in Kampala, Uganda,

for the States Parties to come together and finally come to a consensus on all of the

elements involved in the crime of aggression: the most contentious of which was the

role of the Security Council.

A few words on why the definition was slow in coming and why the Council’s

involvement was insisted upon are necessary. More than half a century before this

dilemma, the first use of the crime of aggression (it was then known as the crime against

peace) was in the Nuremberg trials following the Second World War.

However, after

that time, the geopolitical landscape of the world changed dramatically. With the

shift of the political poles leading to the unprecedented tensions of the Cold War,

which can be particularly well-illustrated by the actions of the Security Council itself,

the use of the crime of aggression at the international level became far too much of

a threat for world leaders. The crime of aggression is a particularly challenging crime

because it is inherently political as it seeks to prosecute the highest government and

military officials for acts committed on a large scale. Unsurprisingly, this made many

world leaders very hesitant to see the crime through to adoption for prosecution in an

AKANDE, Dapo,

What Exactly was Agreed in Kampala on the Crime of Aggression?

, EJIL: Talk!, 2010,

URL:

<http://www.ejiltalk.org/what-exactly-was-agreed-in-kampala-on-the-crime-of-aggression

> [cit.

2015-08-14].

Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, July 17, 1998, U.N. Doc. A/CONF. 183/9 (1998),

[hereinafter Rome Statute].

Fact Sheet on the Review Conference of the Rome Statute, Article 2-2: Definition of the crime of

aggression, elements, conditions of the exercise of the jurisdiction of the Court, URL: <http://www.

icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/PIDS/femalecounsel/ReviewConferenceEng.pdf> [cit. 2015-08-14].

AKANDE, cited above.

Charter of the International Military Tribunal, London, 8 August 1945.