PhD project: The Theory of Leadership Responsibility for the Crime of Aggression

PhD candidate
Nikola R. Hajdin, contact and bio

Project description
The project is concerned primarily with identifying the questions on the level of theory of criminal responsibility that need to be answered in order to find the accused liable for aggression. The crime of aggression is predicated by the so-called leadership clause (‘control or direct’) in that only the accused who meets this requirement may be prosecuted for the crime. The aim of the study is give normative content to the terms ‘control’ and ‘direct’ and to the situate different components of the definition of the crime of aggression within the structural paradigm of the theory of individual criminal responsibility so that we know which criteria need to be fulfilled for the attribution of responsibility for aggression.

Articles and papers relating to the PhD project
• Hajdin N., ‘The Actus Reus of the Crime of Aggression’ (under review)
• Hajdin N., ‘Hybrid Warfare: The Concept of Modern War and Current Authority under International Law’ (under review)
• Hajdin N., ‘Leadership Nature of the Crime of Aggression: The ICC’s New Concern?’, 17 International Criminal Law Review (2017) 543–566.
• Hajdin N., ‘Self-Representation before the International Criminal Court: Safeguarding the Interests of Justice and Protecting Human Rights’, Raoul Wallenberg Institute Publications (2016)
• Hajdin N., ‘Understanding Aggression: Legal Status and Individual Criminal Responsibility before the 2010 Kampala Conference’, Raoul Wallenberg Institute Publications (2015)

Presentations relating to the PhD project
• 2019 Stanford Law School, ‘Responsibility for aggression’

• 2019 Harvard University, workshop organized by the Harvard Law School
– Program on International Law and Armed Conflict
– Paper on material elements of the crime of aggression

• 2019 Oxford University, the Institute of European and Comparative Law
– Paper on principles of attribution of criminal responsibility

• 2018 VU Amsterdam
– Paper on critical views towards responsibility theories in international criminal law

• 2018 Critical Research in International Law (CRIL): An intensive doctoral
retreat in Gimo, Sweden.
– Paper on socio-legal approaches towards international criminal justice

• 2017 Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
– Paper criminal responsibility and the crime of aggression

• 2017 International Law Day in Gothenburg
– Paper on methodological misconceptions of international legal argument in the context of international criminal law

Supervisors
• Professor Pål Wrange
• Professor Elies van Sliedregt
• Professor Thomas Weigend