RESEARCH PROBLEM, RATIONALE, AND DEMARCATION

RESEARCH PROBLEM AND RATIONALE

This book critically assesses the most important components of the framework for individual criminal liability for the crime of aggression. Aggression is regarded as one of the core crimes under customary international law. The definition of aggression and the conditions for the exercise of International Criminal Court jurisdiction over the crime of aggression as adopted at the Kampala Review Conference on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court are yet to enter into force. National and regional legislative frameworks for the criminalisation of aggression complete the legal landscape.

It is argued that the creation of the ICC provides the international community with an historic opportunity to establish effective jurisdiction over the crime of aggression. This criminal justice response to aggression has implications for the collective security system (embodied by the UN).1 Consequently, the latter aspect forms the first substantive part of the book, where some of the implications of aggression for the collective security system are highlighted and examined.

This book provides an historical account of the development of the notion of aggression. It identifies the important debates affecting the attempts to define the crime of aggression; puts the legal debates in normative and international political context; and examines the conditions necessary for the prosecution of the crime of aggression at national, regional and international level.

Special consideration is given to the different elements of the crime of aggression as adopted at the Kampala Review Conference. The reason for this is that the ‘Kampala definition’ constitutes arguably the most realistic and legally sound basis for the eventual prosecution of the crime of aggression before the ICC. An important regional instrument on individual criminal liability for the crime of aggression – the Malabo Protocol of 2014 – provides for a definition of aggression adapted to the relevant regional collective security regime. Domestic incorporation of the crime of aggression takes on different forms. In this book special attention is given to the possibility to prosecute the crime of aggression under customary international law before domestic courts.