Historical Background of the Criminalization of Aggression

Abstract

Aggression was not criminalized before 1945. Throughout centuries, and in all cultures, despite isolated efforts aimed at setting conditions for “lawful” uses of force, rulers and States felt at liberty to resort to force to enforce their political goals. It was only after the Second World War—more precisely, after the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials, followed by trials under the Control Council Law № 10—that aggression was recognized as a crime under international law. But even then, no more prosecutions for the crime occurred after 1949, for political reasons, despite numerous inter-State uses of force. A revival of the criminalization of aggression came with the adoption, on 17 July 1998, of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court where the crime of aggression was listed—along with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes—as one within the jurisdiction of the Court. Twelve more years had elapsed before the States Parties to the Statute agreed upon a definition of the crime of aggression for the purpose of the Statute, and upon the complex procedural conditions for the exercise of the Court’s jurisdiction with respect to the crime. Generally, the chapter serves as a historical introduction to substantive matters dealt with in subsequent chapters of the book, and provides a background for almost any issue of relevant international law raised elsewhere in the volume.