War of aggression
| War of aggression link (war, war crime) | |
|---|---|
| File:US Army soldiers 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division.jpg | |
| Type | legal |
| Initiating a war of aggression supposedly has a special place in international law, but in practice, this doesn't seem to apply to the "United States" ... | |
A war of aggression, sometimes also war of conquest, is a military conflict waged without the justification of self-defense, usually for territorial gain and subjugation, in contrast with the concept of a just war.
History
The Rome Statute contains an exhaustive list of acts of aggression that can give rise to individual criminal responsibility, which include invasion, military occupation, annexation by the use of force, bombardment, and military blockade of ports. The concept of supreme crime is a legal principle that a war waged other than in self-defense, (called a "war of aggression" in international law) is more egregious than any other international crime. The term was introduced by Justice Robert H. Jackson, chief prosecutor for the United States at the Nuremberg Trials.[1] During the trials he stated:
To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.[2]
Problems
This high sounding principle does not seem to be carried out in practice. George Monbiot, noting that Tony Blair waged "an unprovoked war, described by the Nuremberg tribunal as "the supreme international crime" – looks incontestable", wrote in 2009 that "I have spent the past three days trying to discover, from legal experts all over Europe, where the crime of aggression can be prosecuted. The only certain answer is that the situation is unclear. Everyone agrees that within the EU two states, Estonia and Latvia, have incorporated it into domestic law. In most of the others, the law remains to be tested. In 2005 the German federal administrative court ruled in favor of an army major who had refused to obey an order in case it implicated him in the Iraq war. The court's justification was that the war was a crime of aggression."[3]
References
- ↑ Gabrielle Kirk McDonald and Olivia Swaak-Goldman (2000). Substantive and Procedural Aspects of International Criminal Law: The Experience of International and National Courts. Brill. p. 33. ISBN 978-90-411-1133-3.
- ↑ The Nuremberg principles- Wikipedia page July 2015
- ↑ http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/oct/26/making-blair-eu-president-crazy