Prosecuting the Crime of Aggression In the International Criminal Court

BY JOHAN D. VAN DER VYVER — The crime of aggression was included in the subject-matter jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) (Article 5(1)(d) of the ICC Statute), but the competence of the ICC to prosecute aggression was made subject to the adoption of a definition of the crime and of the circumstances under which the ICC could exercise jurisdiction (Article 5(2)). Following years of intensive deliberations, the matter was finally settled by a Review Conference of the International Criminal Court that was held in Kampala, Uganda on May 31 through June 11, 2010.

Bureaucracy and the U.S. Response to Mass Atrocity

BY GREGORY BRAZEAL — The U.S. response to mass atrocity has followed a predictable pattern of disbelief, rationalization, evasion, and retrospective expressions of regret. The pattern is consistent enough that we should be skeptical of chalking up the United States’ failures solely to a shifting array of isolated historical contingencies, from post-Vietnam fatigue in the case of the Khmer Rouge to the Clinton administration’s recoil against humanitarian interventions after Somalia.