Il crimine "eccezionale": recenti sviluppi in tema di criminalizzazione dell'aggressione

THE ‘EXCEPTIONAL’ CRIME: RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE CRIMINALIZATION OF AGGRESSION. Over the last eighty years, the crime of aggression has undergone a peculiar downward trajectory, going from being considered the “supreme international crime” to being effectively the Cinderella of the so-called core crimes, not applied in practice and difficult to apply in theory. Nevertheless, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has set in motion part of the international community, which has become increasingly less confident in the stability of the current system of international relations based on the prohibition of the threat and use of force and is therefore seeking new guarantees for its security. However, the drive to rationalize and harmonize the regulation of the international crime of aggression has been met with strong resistance from another part of the international community – namely, the most powerful states, which are therefore less exposed to possible aggressions – motivated by both political and purely legal reasons. Against this backdrop, it seems more useful than ever to focus on reflecting on the characteristics of the crime of aggression, distinguishing between structural and contingent factors of exceptionality, so that any reforms do not end up consolidating an exacerbated regime of exceptionality which, as has already been shown, condemns the crime of aggression to irrelevance