Justiciability, Complementarity and Immunity: Reflections on the crime of aggression

Abstract

Some 70 years after the first and, so far the only, criminal prosecutions pertaining to the ‘supreme international crime’1 took place,2 the activation of the – long dormant – jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the crime of aggression appears imminent. At the time of writing, 32 States Parties had ratified the Kampala Amendments on the Crime of Aggression,3 thus exceeding the 30 ratifications required for the Court to exercise jurisdiction pursuant to Articles 15bis(2) and 15ter(2) of the ICC Rome Statute (RS).4 The moment of truth will arrive somewhere after 1 January 2017, when the Assembly of States Parties will need to adopt a decision (by consensus or at least by a two-thirds majority) affirming the Court’s jurisdiction