Published: June 15, 2010 at 1:02 PM
KAMPALA, Uganda, June 15 (UPI) — The International Criminal Court said from Uganda that it agreed on a resolution that defines the crime of aggression following nearly 10 years of debate.
A review conference for the ICC at Kampala, Uganda, agreed to amend the Rome Statute, which established the court, to define the act of aggression.
The amended statute said the blockade of ports of a sovereign state by the armed forces of another constitutes an act of aggression. Invasion of territory by foreign forces was also included, the United Nations said.
Specifically, nations at the Kampala conference agreed to define the crime of aggression as “the planning, preparation, initiation or execution, by a person in a position effectively to exercise control over or to direct the political or military action of a state, of an act of aggression which, by its character, gravity and scale, constitutes a manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations.”
Delegates at the Kampala conference agreed that the ICC can exercise authority over aggression but only after states ratify the definition. The United Nations said this is unlikely to happen until further review in 2017.
Genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression were included under the 1998 Rome Statute.
More than 100 nations have signed onto the Rome Statute, though Russia, China, India and the United States haven’t joined.
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