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Article
The Push to Criminalize Aggression: Something Lost Amid the Gains?
Case Wastern Reserve Law Review
  • Mark A. Drumbl, Washington and Lee University School of Law
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2009
Abstract

The International Criminal Court has jurisdiction over the crime of aggression, but the Rome Statute fails to define the crime. A Special Work- ing Group on the Crime of Aggression, however, has made considerable progress in developing a definition. The consensus that has emerged favors a narrow definition. Three characteristics animate this consensus: (1) that state action is central to the crime; (2) that acts of aggression involve inter- state armed conflict; and (3) that criminal responsibility attaches only to very top political or military leaders. This Article normatively challenges this consensus. I argue that expanding the scope of the crime of aggression in terms of both the impugned acts as well as who can be prosecuted could carry considerable expressive value. Such an expansion also would better reflect the diversity of contemporary threats to stability, security, sovereign- ty, and human rights interests.

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Citation Information
Mark A. Drumbl, The Push to Criminalize Aggression: Something Lost Amid the Gains?, 41 Case W. Res. J. Int'l L. 41 291 (2009).