(UK) Campaigners ask courts to rule Iraq war a 'crime of aggression'

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/02/20/nirq20.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/02/20/ixhome.html

Campaigners ask courts to rule Iraq war a 'crime of aggression'
Britain's most senior judges will be asked today for a ruling that could lead to the war in Iraq being declared an illegal "crime of aggression".

Until now, the courts have taken the view that they cannot rule on the Crown's prerogative powers to wage war. But today the law lords will start hearing appeals by peace protesters who claim they were entitled to commit "criminal" acts in an attempt to prevent what they saw as the greater crime of launching an illegal war.

Nobody has been punished for aggression in international law since the Nuremberg Tribunal executed former Nazi officers in 1946. The new International Criminal Court does not yet have jurisdiction over the crime, partly because of difficulties in agreeing a definition of it.

But the Government has been told by its senior legal adviser that ministers could face such charges under English law.