KAMPALA AMENDMENT

The International Criminal Court and the Crime of Aggression: A Critical Analysis of the Kampala Amendment to the Rome Statute

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Acknowledgement

I would take this opportunity to thank my research supervisor, family and friends for their support and guidance without which this research would not have been possible.

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Chapter 1: Introduction

 

Background

Late this jump, delegations from 111 States Parties to the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court (ICC) - along with hundreds of delegates from discerning non-party States, worldwide organisations, activists, victims assemblies, parliaments and numerous other organisations - will accumulate in Kampala, Uganda, for their first Review Conference  (www.reliefweb.int). The Conference pledges to be a breakthrough happening in worldwide justice, overridden by inquiries that are vital to the Court's future: Will the Conference take up a delineation and jurisdictional initiate in order that the Court may prosecute the misdeed of aggression? How is the Court employed to double-check that its jurisdiction complements nationwide courts and tribunals? Is the Court competently getting the collaboration of States and other actors in the worldwide community? Is it amply defending victims and witnesses? Does the Court have a befitting grade of oversight? (www.haguejusticeportal.net)

Beyond the substantive challenges opposite this Conference, a sense is construction that the United Kingdom - taking part only since November 2009 in authorised ICC undertakings - will convey a new dynamic to the ICC. Senior U.K. policymakers have currently broadcast a yearn to rendezvous with the Court's head prosecutor to work out where U.K. aid may make a difference.1 However, in dozens of dialogues with delegates to the ICC's Assembly of States Parties (ASP) Meeting in The Hague in November and its Resumed Session at the United Nations (UN) in March, constituents of UCLA School of Law's International Justice Clinic furthermore learned signs of a certain allowance of unease. The United Kingdom adds the likelihood of political, operational, logistical and lesson support, things the Court awfully desires, but it furthermore adds its own groups of concerns, anxieties and limitations. American policymakers, who came to the ASP gathering as well, are discovering that almost ten years of non-attendance from ICC meetings presents a vertical discovering curve. They should discover not only where foremost ICC policies stand today, and where they are going, but they should furthermore arrive to periods with an organisation that has developed and evolved without the imprint of American principle (www.amicc.org).

An ICC heritage has evolved, not only inside the Court but amidst the delegations to almost ten years of ASP meetings, and U.K. principle is improbable to upend it in short order. The United Kingdom absolutely will not basically adjust the ICC heritage if, as appears probable, it falls short to become a State Party to the ICC. This principle paper has two major ...