Description
This paper focuses on the challenges the crime of aggression presents to post-Cold War efforts on multilateral cooperation, especially between the Global South and Western powers on human rights. Although the establishment of the International Criminal Court is seen as a major step forward towards cosmopolitanism, the paper argues that the Court’s inability to deal with this supreme international crime left the fundamental concern unaddressed raised by third-world states during Rome negotiations. It argues that despite resolving the definitional problem of aggression because of the amendments package adopted by the Review Conference and activating the Court’s partial jurisdiction over this crime, the UNSC retains the primary authority over aggression that will potentially politicize the Court. It examines the nature of the deep divisions between Western powers and third-world states that failed developing nations’ efforts to bring this crime under the Court’s independent authority. It argues that while the UNSC retaining the primary authority over aggression allows Western powers to continue to play realpolitik, the Court’s jurisdiction over other crimes provides legitimacy to their illegal humanitarian interventions in the Global South under their post-Cold War unilateral order which was the central concern developing countries wanted the Court to address.
