Does the Rome Statute undermine the role of the Security Council?
According to the State Department s Marc Grossman, the Rome treaty “dilutes the authority of the UN Security Council”, because it may give the court the right to decide when an act of aggression has taken place. Grossman also argued that the Security Council should have the right to check possible excesses of the prosecutor, by giving its approval before investigations initiated by the prosecutor could go ahead. However, as noted above, the Statute s treatment of aggression explicitly states that the definition should be framed in such a way as to be consistent with the UN Charter and the special role that it gives the Security Council. Moreover, as also noted above, the Security Council retains the right to suspend prosecutions for a renewable period of one year, if the Council determines that such a suspension is necessary for the promotion of international peace and security. The difference between this provision, and the version that the administration would have preferred (i.e. th
