THE CRIME OF AGGRESSION IN THE ROMAN STATUTE

Abstract

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court prescribes its jurisdiction for: a) the crime of genocide, b) a crime against humanity, c) war crimes, and d) the crime of aggression. During the adoption of the Statute, agreement was not reached on the elements of the criminal act of aggression and the jurisdiction of the United Nations Security Council in connection with the initiation of an investigation in the proceedings before that court. For this reason, this crime was conditionally placed under the jurisdiction of the Court, but it was postponed until an agreement was reached on its definition and the court's jurisdiction, and regulations were passed that would establish these elements. These elements were determined at the review conference in Kampala in 2010, when amendments to Article 8 of the Rome Statute were adopted by resolution in the form of amendments. In this paper, the author talks about the elements of the criminal act of aggression, the jurisdiction of the court and the role of the United Nations Security Council, pointing out the problems in the procedure of their determination, the delay in the entry into force of the amendments to the Statute and the temporal jurisdiction of the court. Through a critical analysis of the adopted amendments, it points out all the advantages and disadvantages of the accepted definition of the crime of aggression and its future in international criminal law.