Description
This paper surveys the political, moral and legal aspects of the concept of aggression and its implications for the Global South. It argues that the European powers employed a natural-law-based universal ideal differently among themselves, thus establishing a pluralist international society for themselves but using that same ideal to impose an unjust solidarist extra-European order upon non-Europeans. It focuses on the creation of a “crime of aggression” by the great powers in the wake of World War II. The paper argues that while the post-WWI criminalization of aggression under the new rules of collective-security enabled the victorious European imperialists to punish the alleged aggressors, these rules also allowed them to keep colonies, thus legitimizing their colonial aggression against non-Europeans and their readmission into the global order on less favourable terms. It analyses the victorious Western powers’ resistance to a legally-binding definition of aggression and insistence on merely a moral obligation to jointly defend states against aggression, allowing them to continue to play realpolitik rendering ineffective both the League of Nations and the UN as a means to counter aggression. It especially examines the US-led Western powers’ employment of universal morality to justify aggressive wars during the Cold War and even more so in the post-Cold War era to continue their imperial practices under a new kind of imperial rule. It also analyzes why the ICC, despite resolving the definitional problem of aggression and activating its jurisdiction over this crime, may potentially become a UNSC’s tool to counter aggression. Finally, it stresses any UN reforms without a different approach will not address the concerns of the South.
