Who Is Afraid of the Crime of Aggression?

There is no question that deterring the illegal use of force is a noble goal. Unfortunately, the crime of aggression, heralded as a major accomplishment when adopted by the Assembly of States Parties, is but a pale shadow of the kind of criminal prohibition that might have convinced would-be aggressors that they will be held accountable for their belligerent acts. Instead, as this article explains, the crime of aggression at the International Criminal Court is so jurisdictionally narrow, so substantively limited, and so unlikely to promote domestic prosecutions that its deterrent value is essentially non-existent. Moreover, danger abounds in the very act of activation — the danger that victims (state and individual) might assume that the era of impunity for aggression is coming to an end. Nothing could be further from truth.