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From TruthOut
Dated Tuesday November 9
Aggressive War: Supreme International Crime
By Marjorie Cohn
Associate United States Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson was the chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Tribunal. In his report to the State Department, Justice Jackson wrote: "No political or economic situation can justify" the crime of aggression. He also said: "If certain acts in violation of treaties are crimes they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us" . . . .
Bush's war on Iraq is a war of aggression. "Aggression is the use of armed force by a state against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations, as set out in this definition," according to General Assembly Resolution 3314, passed in the wake of Vietnam.
The only two situations where the UN Charter permits the use of armed force against another state is in self-defense, or when authorized by the Security Council. Iraq had not invaded the U.S., or any other country, Iraq did not constitute an imminent threat to any country, and the Security Council never sanctioned Bush's war. Bush and the officials in his administration are committing the crime of aggression.
Virtually every Western democracy has ratified the treaty of the International Criminal Court, except the United States. Bush knows that the Court will prosecute leaders for the crime of aggression. Mindful that he and his officials could become defendants, Bush renounced the Court, and extracted bilateral immunity agreements from more than 80 countries . . . .
Bush knows that the Court will also punish war crimes.
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