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Prosecuting the Crime of Aggression: The Role of the UN Security Council

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Rethinking the Crime of Aggression

Abstract

This chapter discusses the role of the UN Security Council in relation to the exercise of jurisdiction by the International Criminal Court over the crime of aggression. It will first demonstrate that while the Security Council is a political organ, it is not legibus solutus (unbound by law). Subsequently, it will discuss the travaux préparatoires and the substance of the Kampala Amendments on the crime of aggression, more specifically the role given to the Security Council in these amendments. In addition, it will examine whether the ICC may review future aggression determinations by the Security Council. Finally, it will briefly analyse the history of aggression determinations by the Security Council, and how the Kampala Amendments may affect such determinations in the future.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    First sentence of the Preamble of the UN Charter.

  2. 2.

    Articles 24 (1), 25 and 103 UN Charter.

  3. 3.

    Article 24 (2) UN Charter.

  4. 4.

    Article 4 UN Charter (Admission of a State to the United Nations); ICJ, Advisory Opinion of 28 May 1948 (Conditions of Admission of a State to Membership in the United Nations), p. 57, para 64, ICJ Reports (1948).

  5. 5.

    See further Higgins 1970; Ratner 2004; Crawford 2013, pp. 296–321.

  6. 6.

    Security Council Official Records No. 1, at 5. Makin’s statement continued as follows: ‘[…] but we shall not fail to exercise to the full the very great powers which have been given to this Council’.

  7. 7.

    UNGA Resolution 67/1 of 30 November 2012, para 1.

  8. 8.

    ICC Resolution ICC-ASP/1/Res.1 of 9 September 2020.

  9. 9.

    See Koh and Buchwald 2017.

  10. 10.

    Article 39 UN Charter (emphasis added).

  11. 11.

    Article 23 (2) Draft Statute, Yb ILC 1994, Vol. II, Part Two, pp. 43–45.

  12. 12.

    Ibid., Article 39 (commentary to Article 20 Draft Statute).

  13. 13.

    ‘[…] the ultimate step in avoiding periodic wars, which are inevitable in a system of international lawlessness, is to make statesmen responsible to law. And let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment’. IMT Nuremberg, Judgement of 1 October 1946, (Prosecutor v. Goering et al.), in: Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, Volume II, Nürnberg, p. 154.

  14. 14.

    See Blokker and Kreß 2010.

  15. 15.

    See in more detail the analysis by Barriga and Blokker 2017a, b, and by Blokker and Barriga 2017.

  16. 16.

    See Kreß 2018, p. 12.

  17. 17.

    On the role of the Pre-Trial Division, see Chaitidou et al. 2017.

  18. 18.

    Akande and Tzanakopoulos 2017, p. 215.

  19. 19.

    See for example Alvarez 1996.

  20. 20.

    UNSC Resolution 405 (1977) of 14 April 1977.

  21. 21.

    UNSC Resolution 667 (1990) of 16 September 1990.

  22. 22.

    UN Doc. S/PV.7958 of 2 June 2017, p. 3; NATO, The Wales Declaration of 5 September 2014, para 2.

  23. 23.

    E.g. UNSC Resolution 667 (1990) of 16 September 1990.

  24. 24.

    E.g. UNSC Resolution 445 (1979) of 8 March 1979.

  25. 25.

    E.g. UNSC Resolution 567 (1985) of 20 June 1985.

  26. 26.

    UNSC Resolution 326 (1973) of 2 February 1973 and subsequent resolutions, 1973–1979.

  27. 27.

    UNSC Resolution 387 (1976) of 31 March 1976 and subsequent resolutions, 1976–1987.

  28. 28.

    UNSC Resolution 405 (1977) of 14 April 1977.

  29. 29.

    UNSC Resolution 573 (1985) of 4 October 1985; UNSC Resolution 611 (1988) of 15 April 1988.

  30. 30.

    UNSC Resolution 667 (1990) of 16 September 1990.

  31. 31.

    Historical Review of Developments relating to Aggression (2003), UN Publication, available https://legal.un.org/cod/books/HistoricalReview-Aggression.pdf (accessed 1 March 2021), pp. 225–236. This study correctly notes that, following the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq on 2 August 1990, the Security Council did not qualify this invasion as an act of aggression, but as a ‘breach of the peace’ (UNSC Resolution 660 [1990] of 2 August 1990). See also Strapatsas 2017.

  32. 32.

    See Strapatsas 2017, p. 180 (with examples in footnote 18).

  33. 33.

    See further Barriga and Blokker 2017a, b, pp. 638–640; Strapatsas 2017, p. 204.

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  1. Leiden Law School, University of Leiden, Kamerlingh Onnes Building, Steenschuur 25, 2311 ES, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Niels Blokker

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  1. Department of Law, Philipps University of Marburg, Marburg, Germany

    Stefanie Bock

  2. Department of History, Philipps University of Marburg, Marburg, Germany

    Eckart Conze

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Blokker, N. (2022). Prosecuting the Crime of Aggression: The Role of the UN Security Council. In: Bock, S., Conze, E. (eds) Rethinking the Crime of Aggression. T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-467-9_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-467-9_13

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