The Aggression Amendments: Points of Consensus and Dissension
4 Pages Posted: 23 Apr 2011 Last revised: 30 Apr 2011
Date Written: April 20, 2011
Abstract
This paper encapsulates remarks made at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law on a panel devoted to considering the new amendments to the ICC Statute adding the crime of aggression to the Court's subject matter jurisdiction. It addresses the interpretive understandings adopted at the Review Conference in Kampala Uganda vis-a-vis the definition of the crime, the negotiations surrounding the crime's jurisdictional regime, and lingering confusion over the way in which the ICC Statute's amendment provisions should apply to the codification of the crime of aggression. The paper argues that the plain language reading of Article 121(5) should govern the question of when states parties are "bound" by the amendments such that the Court can prosecute the crime when committed by their nationals or on their territories.
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