On June 11-14, 2007, LISD hosted the fourth Intersessional Meeting of the Special Working Group on the Crime of Aggression. This is the fourth time that LISD hosted this working group. Delegates from ICC States Parties, other States, and NGOs continued deliberations relating to defining the crime of aggression under the ICC Statute. The meeting was chaired by Ambassador Christian Wenaweser, Permanent Representative of the Principality of Liechtenstein to the United Nations.

When the Statute of the International Criminal Court was adopted by the Diplomatic Conference in Rome in July 1998, the Court was given jurisdiction over the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes as well as the crime of aggression. Although there was agreement that the Court should have jurisdiction over the crime of aggression, no agreement was reached on the definition of this crime. The Preparatory Commission and, thereafter, the Assembly of States Parties of the ICC were given the task of preparing proposals for a provision “defining the crime and setting out the conditions under which the Court shall exercise jurisdiction with respect to this crime.”
After the Rome Conference, work on the crime of aggression proceeded steadily, but in very small steps with many contentious issues remaining unresolved. At the September 2003 meeting of the Special Working Group on the Crime of Aggression, in the context of the Second Assembly of States Parties, interest was expressed in holding an intersessional meeting before the next formal meeting of the Working Group in September 2004.

The first of these intersessional meetings was convened in Princeton in 2004.  This meeting and subsequent meetings in 2005 and 2006 have helped to create a new momentum in this difficult negotiation process and have given the topic more prominence in the multilateral arena.