CYIL 2015

THE UNDERSTANDINGS TO THE ROME STATUTE’S CRIME OF AGGRESSION covered the topic, each in their own respect; however, I still see some comments that I would like to add to their interesting discussions. 2. (Ir)Relevance of the Understandings BothHeller’s andRyngaert’s article broadly discuss the contents of theUnderstandings point by point. McDougall adds comments to several of the understandings. Relevance of this discussion is obvious – if the Understandings add nothing to the Rome Statute and change the interpretation of the treaty in no way, then there is no problem and the legal status (i.e. binding force of the Understandings for judges of the International Criminal Court in possible future proceedings regarding any crime of aggression) is irrelevant. On the other hand, if the Understandings do change the way the Rome Statute would be interpreted without them even in the slightest way, it is crucial to identify the legal status of annex III to Resolution RC/Res. 6 containing the Understandings in order to find out their relevance and position (or “no position”) within the sources of law that the ICC needs to abide by. In other words – do the judges of the ICC need to follow the Understandings, or are they allowed to disregard them? Unlike the status of the Understandings, there was quite a lot written as to their meaning and what the reasons were for the way they look. Acceptance of the Understandings is obviously as much different as there are different opinions of authors of such commentaries. I do not want to repeat what has been already written by others, and so this part of my contribution is rather a submission of ideas as to why the Understandings do not necessarily create (with two exceptions) a problem for the interpretation of the Rome Statute and the Definition. Although I agree that there are other opinions as well, I usually see them, however, as unnecessarily complicated when the issues could be solved as the following pages show. The Understandings are separated into four parts – referrals by the Security Council, jurisdiction ratione temporis , domestic jurisdiction over the crime of aggression, and other understandings; each part containing 2 points, except for jurisdiction ratione temporis , containing only one. For the purposes of this article, they are, however, divided differently – into a group of those that have no legal significance (i.e. they are clearly in compliance with the Rome Statute and the Definition), a second group of those that are considered to be capable of providing a different interpretation than the Rome Statute and the Definition alone, and a third group of those that simply present a different interpretation than the Rome Statute or the Definition. 2.1 Confirming understandings Several points of the Understandings are clearly only confirming what is already stated within the Rome Statute or the Definition or can be deduced from them. The second understanding 8 confirms that the scope of jurisdiction of the ICC is not limited

8 It is understood that the Court shall exercise jurisdiction over the crime of aggression on the basis of

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