The United States of America and the Crime of Aggression

✍ Scribed by Giulia Pecorella

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 295
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book traces the position of the United States of America on aggression, beginning with the Declaration of Independence up to 2020, covering the four years of the Trump Administration. The decision of the Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court to activate the Court’s jurisdiction over the crime of aggression in 2018 has added further value to a book concerning the position and practice of one of the most influential states, a global military power and permanent member of the UN Security Council.

Organized along chronological lines, the work examines whether, or to what extent, the US position has evolved over time. The book explores how the definition of the crime can impact upon the US, notwithstanding its failure to ratify the Rome Statute. It also shows that the US practice and opinio iuris about the law applicable to the use of force might influence, as it has done in the past, the law itself.

The work will be a valuable guide for students, academics and professionals with an interest in International Criminal Law.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication Page
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Prelude to the criminalisation of aggression: the bygone era (1776–1917)
1 Introduction
2 Declaration of Independence, neutrality doctrine and self-defence: a common natural-law ground
3 Time for international conferences
4 The search for justifications
5 The First World War
6 Conclusion
Bibliography
2 The international delict of aggression (1918–1944)
1 Introduction
2 The Paris Peace Conference
2.1 The US and the 1919 Commission on the Responsibility of the Authors of the War and on Enforcement of Penalties
2.2 The Covenant of the League of Nations
3 Conferences and multilateral agreements in the 1920s
4 The legal grounds for interpositions of a temporary character: US practice during the 1920s
5 The Pact of Paris
6 Conferences and multilateral agreements in the 1930s
6.1 Aggression and the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of an American state
6.2 Disarmament and aggression
7 The Pact of Paris in the 1930s
8 Neutrality and self-defence
9 Aggression during the Second World War
9.1 A new international organisation for the maintenance of peace
9.2 The United Nations War Crimes Commission
10 Conclusion
Bibliography
3 The international crime of aggression (1945–1952)
1 Introduction
2 A new year’s change
3 Regional vs universal aggression
3.1 (a) Article 2(4) of the Charter of the United Nations
3.1 (b) Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations
3.1 (c) Collective security under the Charter of the United Nations
3.2 Informal negotiations dealing with the treatment of war criminals
4 London
5 Nuremberg
6 Tokyo
7 Subsequent Nuremberg Trials
8 The Nuremberg principles blowing in the wind
9 Individual and collective defence in the second half of the 1940s
10 Conclusion
Bibliography
4 An indefinable aggression (1952–2002)
1 Introduction
2 US practice during the Cold War: interventions in Latin America
3 US practice during the Cold War: self-defence
4 US practice during the Cold War: aggression as an instrument of propaganda
5 Resolution 2625 (1970)
6 Resolution 3314 (1974)
7 The US and the outer space
8 1990 Persian Gulf War
8.1 Iraq: the first Gulf War and the debate at the UN level
8.2 Iraq: the debate on the idea of an international tribunal
9 Towards the adoption of the ICC Statute
10 Conclusion
Bibliography
5 A treaty-based crime of aggression (2003–2020)
1 Introduction
2 The Kampala Review Conference
2.1 The US position in Kampala
2.2 The rationale behind the US position: customary law and universal jurisdiction
2.3 The Kampala amendment
2.4 The ‘character’ factor in the threshold clause
2.4.1 Humanitarian intervention
2.4.2 Self-defence
2.4.2 (a) The notions of ‘armed attack’ and pre-emptive self-defence
2.4.2 (b) The 2003 Iraqi War
2.4.2 (c) (Self-)defences in Syria
2.4.2 (d) The US, the UN Charter and the notion of ‘attack’ in the cyberspace
2.4.2 (e) The US, the UN Charter and the notion of ‘attack’ in the outer space
3 The US and the crime of aggression after the Kampala Review Conference
4 Conclusion
Bibliography
Conclusion
Index