To: President Donald Trump, The United States House of Representatives, and The United States Senate
Criminalize aggression
The International Criminal Court recently adopted a definition of the crime of aggression. The United States should likewise criminalize this offense, at least as to American nationals, to assure the rest of the world that when we do use armed force, we are not doing so as part of a scheme of global domination or in violation of our obligations under the U.N. Charter, but rather only as a legitimate last resort to defend ourselves from attack.
Why is this important?
The so-called Arab Spring is part of a broader Global Spring, where the people of the world are taking note of what governments are doing and having the courage to stand up for what they believe in. President Dwight Eisenhower said that "I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it." He was right. At the very least, the U.S. government should make it a crime for any American leader to authorize armed force in violation of our commitments under the U.N. Charter and relevant international law, so that the people of the world will know that that's not what America and Americans are about.