CYIL vol. 8 (2017)

CYIL 8 ȍ2017Ȏ

THE CRIME OF AGGRESSION: A COMMENTARY

of how the respective procedural provisions came to be while maintaining themselves concise. Anyone who ever read the mostly excruciatingly long travaux préparatoires of complicated international treaties should find such explanations very useful. Since the International Criminal Court is based among others on the complementarity principle, domestic legislations play a key role and certainly will continue to do so in criminalizing (one would hope rather for deterrence of would-be crimes than criminalizing those perpetrated). And so part IV introduces the domestic legislation of many countries from all around the world. Legislation in Croatia, Germany, Estonia, Russia, and the United Kingdom have been described in detail and others as well. But life does not stop and should I be allowed to borrow a term from the European Court of Human Rights, international law is a “living instrument” and is being constantly re-interpreted. That is why it is also very useful to read about the actor’s views in part V, called the “Crime of Aggression and the Future World Order”. As was already proven at the Rome conference, civil society keeps playing an increasingly important role and so the civil society approach is covered as well. All in all, the publication is a remarkable contribution and to those wishing to understand the Rome Statute, its evolution and the crime of aggression in particular, it will be a welcome piece into the library. There were already some books published on the topic since 2010 but this publication is unique both in its size and span.

Milan Lipovský *

* JUDr. Milan Lipovský, Ph.D. is a senior lecturer and researcher at the Department of International Law, Faculty of Law, Charles University.

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