The Crime of Aggression and the Eritrea-Ethiopia Armed Conflict

Within international law, the prohibition of aggression has the status of a peremptory norm that is of pivotal interest to the international community as a whole. The concept of aggression forms one of the bases for the exercise of the exceptional powers of the Security Council and since a few years the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction as to the crime of aggression. The importance attached to the prohibition of aggression, however, is not matched by a clear definition or by a frequent use of the concept by international political and judicial bodies. This infrequent use of the concept of aggression stands in sharp contrast to the willingness of States to use the concept as a tool to discredit their political enemies. The Eritrea-Ethiopia conflict largely follows this pattern. While both States extensively accused each other of having committed acts of aggression, the Security Council refrained from using the concept at all. The Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission dealt with the aggression complaints but construed the prohibition of aggression very narrowly and approached the responsibility for violations of the jus ad bellum as a purely bilateral question and not as an issue that concerns the international community as a whole.