CYIL 2015

THE CRIME OF AGGRESSION UNDER THE ROME STATUTE …

Carrie McDougall The Crime of Aggression under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court [Zločin agrese v Římském statutu Mezinárodního trestního soudu]

2013: Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 411 p., Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law

The crime of aggression was added within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (hereinafter referred to as the “ICC”) during the Rome conference already in 1998; however the exercise of the jurisdiction was postponed till the crime and conditions for exercise of the jurisdiction would be defined. 1 This occurred in 2010 in Ugandan Kampala when the Review Conference adopted Resolution RC/ Res. 6, on the definition of the crime of aggression (hereinafter referred to as the “Resolution”). Due to the still relatively short time since adoption of the Resolution, there have not been many books written on the subject yet. One example is the book that I have decided to write a review of. Its author, Carrie McDougall, has been a member of the Special Working Group on the Crime of Aggression as a representative of the Australian government, which allowed her to gain a lot of interesting information about the negotiations, and she provides this in her work. The book was first published in 2015 as a hardback, this year as a paperback copy. It is divided into 7 chapters, each dealing with a particular set of issues related to crime. The first one introduces the topic and its historical evolution, while the main focus lies within the negotiations between the Rome and Kampala conferences. The second chapter discusses positive and negative arguments in favour of (or against) criminalising aggression. The author reaches mainly positive answers to the answer of whether aggression should be criminalised. Generally, I agree with her. The trouble comes later. Chapters 3 to 6 deal with the crime of aggression from different aspects. Unlike the author of the book, I am not so optimistic as to the result of the negotiations; I do not think that the compromise reached brings more positives than negatives to criminalisation of aggression;, however, there is no doubt that Carrie McDougall has presented an excellent analysis of the topic and has pointed out critical issues that the ICC will need to deal with if jurisdiction over the crime of aggression ever will be activated.

1 Article 5 (2) of the Rome Statute, 2187 UNTS 3, adopted on July 17, 1998, entered into force on July 1, 2002 (hereinafter referred to as the „Rome Statute“).

421