CYIL vol. 8 (2017)

MILAN LIPOVSKÝ

CYIL 8 ȍ2017Ȏ

Claus Kreß and Stefan Barriga

The Crime of Aggression: A Commentary.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017, 1583 p. 1

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The crime of aggression and its predecessor – the crimes against peace – should without doubt belong to the core of interest of current international law. Hence it is strange that, as Carrie McDougall puts it, they “ faded into the background of international criminal law in the second half of the twentieth century .” 2 This downfall was corrected in 2010 when the definition of the crime of aggression was agreed upon and the process of its inclusion into the Rome Statute began. The previous process was nonetheless very complicated and the work on the definition was full of “ dead ends, evasive or circular formulations, conceptual overreach and repeated deferrals to some future conference or session. ” 3 It should be added that the ideas of deferrals to the future are still alive even after the “Kampala definition” was finalized. The reviewed book is an extensive contribution to the understanding of both the crimes against peace and the crime of aggression, and their punishment on the international and domestic level. The editors (Claus Kreß and Stefan Barriga) invited an impressive team of experts, spanning from scholars, practitioners, academics, judges and, last but absolutely not least, to Ben Ferencz, Chief Prosecutor in the Nuremberg trial. The team has created an inspiring source of information useful to anyone interested in international criminal law and the crime of aggression in particular. Many of the invited contributors have already written articles as well as some books focused on the topic and international criminal law in general. The Crime of Aggression: A Commentary consists of two volumes and the Commentary itself is the second part of the Crime of Aggression Library. So the Library now consists of its first part – the Travaux Préparatoires of the Crime of Aggression (published in 2011) – and the second part – the Commentary on the crime of aggression, the object of this review. All of them were printed by the Cambridge University Press. The Commentary’s Volume I covers parts I – III and a piece of part IV. Volume II covers the rest of Part IV, the whole Part V and the Epilogue. On over 1500 pages the publication provides the readers with historical, theoretical and practical views on prosecution of the crime of aggression on its international as well as domestic level. As it also discusses individual countries’ views, the publication covers all possible issues relating to the crime of aggression and its punishment. There are both general and specific topics dealt with. This is a review, not a scholarly article, however for an academic writer it is almost impossible to be silent on legal disputes, so 1 KRESS, Claus, BARRIGA, Stefan (eds.), The Crime of Aggression: A Commentary. CRIME OF AGGRESSION LIBRARY (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017), ISBN: 978-1-107-01526-5, price £225.00 / $350. 2 Page 49. 3 As James Crawford noted regarding the work of the ILC on the crime of aggression in chapter 7, p. 233.

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