What is the purpose of this paper?

In accordance with its heading, this paper is an attempt to provide some “food for thought” for the continued opinion-building process among members of the United Nations. This process is, in the German view, indispensable for a more consolidated and more consensual definition of the crime of aggression in article 20 of the draft Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Being fully aware of the complexity and the many difficult aspects involved in a definition of the crime of aggression for the purpose of the Statute, the German delegation would be grateful if delegations of Member States could reflect upon the ideas and elements contained in this informal paper and take them into consideration when, at a later stage, we come back to a further debate on the draft consolidated text on the crime of aggression of February 1997 (as contained in UN Doc A/AC.249/1997/L.5, pages 14/15).

2. What is the German approach and position with regard to a definition of the crime of aggression?

Germany continues to support the inclusion of the crime of aggression in the Statute.

Not to include this crime would, in our view, be a regression behind the Nuremberg Charter of 1945, the ILC’s Nuremberg Principles of 1950, the ILC’s Draft Statute (Art. 20) of 1994 and the ILC’s Draft Code of Crimes against the Peace and the Security of Mankind of 1996. It would also amount to a refusal to draw an appropriate conclusion from recent history. The German side believes that we need the inclusion of this crime for reasons of deterrence and prevention, and in order to reaffirm in the most unequivocal manner that the waging of an aggressive war is a crime under international law.