“Qualitative” requirements of the crime of aggression: leadership clause and the term of manifest violation

Jurisprudence 1/2019 Section: Articles Page: 19–28

Keywords: crime of aggression, Rome Statute, manifest violation of the UN Charter, leadership element

Abstract: A decades lasting process of defining the crime of aggression and creating conditions for punishing its perpetration, ended in July 2018. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is now endowed with the jurisdiction with respect to the crime of aggression and the Court may exercise its jurisdiction over it. The definition, however, is still unclear in several aspects. Even if many of those unclear issues have already been solved, others remain – mostly material aspects of the definition. Those unclear issues include two “qualitative” requirements that need to be fulfilled in order for the perpetrator to be found guilty. The definition of the crime of aggression consists of the conduct of the state and of the individual; both of these parts entail a qualitative requirement. The conduct of the state needs to manifest violation of the UN Charter and the individual needs to fulfil the leadership element. This article aims to show possible interpretative ways of these terms.

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