The International Criminal Court and the Crime of Aggression

Last month, at the International Criminal Court review conference in Kampala, Uganda, the ICC’s states parties. This conference added the crime of aggression to the court’s mandate.  Aggression joins genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes as crimes falling under the court’s prosecutorial remit. While it was always intended for the ICC to exert jurisdiction over crimes of aggression, a definition had not been agreed upon when the Rome Statute came into force in 2002.

This new amendment to the Rome Statute defines aggression as the planning,  reparation, initiation, or execution, by a person in a position effectively to exercise control over or to direct the political or military action of a state, of an act of aggression which, by its character, gravity and scale, constitutes a manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations. This crime will become operational after 30 states have ratified the amendment, succeeding another review conference in 2017.
 
The United States and other powerful countries, which have yet to ratify the statute, objected to the crime and worried what effect this may have on their peacekeepers during humanitarian efforts and international stability operations. However, the United States delegation left Uganda with much satisfaction in regards to the crime of aggression.  The United States finds the above-mentioned definition favorable, because as along as the necessary steps are taken, as described in the statute overall, it cannot be subjected to the legality of the crime. Only state parties can be tried for crimes of aggression, and even then they may exempt themselves from jurisdictions by submitting a declaration of non-acceptance to the court.
 
The United States sent about 16 people to act as observers and has vowed to continue relations with the ICC. The United States has accepted the finality of the court and sees the court as a part of its policy against impunity. The ICC has an important place in international relations to ensure that severe human rights violations and genocide will never go unpunished and hopefully deter future crimes. Although the ICC is meant as a complementary court to established national courts, it is the only court that has defined genocide as a crime.