There is abundant literature on the need and the possibility for the creation of an international criminal court (see the author's previous studies). 1 It may be recalled that in 1953 a Committee on International Criminal Jurisdiction appointed by the General Assembly of the United Nations prepared a draft statute of an international criminal court. 2 The General Assembly of the United Nations decided to postpone its decision in this matter until the elaboration of the definition of aggression. 3
On December 14, 1974, the twenty-ninth U.N. General Assembly adopted Resolution 3314 which defines aggression as “the use of armed force by a State against the sovereign 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.” 4 Thus, the formal obstacle within the United Nations has been eliminated and therefore further international cooperation in the establishment of an international criminal court appears to be timely.
Important nongovernmental bodies continue to deal with this problem. The International Association of Penal Law organized on September 5, 1975, at Geneva during the Fifth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders, a session devoted to the “International Criminal Tribunal.” During this session, presided over by Dean Pierre Bouzat (University of Rennes, France), president of the association, Professor M. Cherif Bassiouni (De Paul University, Chicago), its secretary general, and Gerhard Grebing (Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Penal Law, Freiburg in Breisgau, Federal Republic of Germany), its associate secretary general, submitted their reports which were followed by expositions by Professor Bart De Schutter (Free University of Brussels, Belgium) and by Professor Louis Kos-Rabcewicz-Zubkowski (University of Ottawa, Canada). 5
The statute of an international criminal court was the subject of the work of experts from many countries during international criminal law conferences organized by the Foundation for the Establishment of an International Criminal Court and presided over by its president, Professor Robert K. Woetzel (Boston College—Jesuit University of Boston). 6