The Crime of Aggression and National Law: The UK
17 Pages Posted: 4 Dec 2019 Last revised: 14 Dec 2019
Date Written: December 4, 2019
Abstract
Although no domestic crime of aggression currently exists in the UK, the chapter argues that there would be no inherent legal bar to its prosecution should the legislature choose in future to enact one. This is not to say that such prosecution would necessarily proceed, insofar as in a case involving a foreign State official it would come up against the defendant’s potential immunity, either ratione personae or ratione materiae, from the jurisdiction of the UK's criminal courts. In the event, however, that the defendant to a charge of aggression could permissibly be proceeded against in a UK court, the questions implicated by the adjudication of a statutory crime of aggression would be within the rightful power of that court to determine. The only fundamental bar to such adjudication is the political will to enact a crime of aggression.
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