Retroactive criminal law in relation to crimes of aggression: historical and international aspects

The subject of this research is the planning, preparation, and waging of an aggressive war as a crime against the peace and security of mankind. The author raises the problem of the possibility of applying the retroactive force of the criminal law to an act of this kind, despite the absence of such a provision in article 10 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. As examples, the author provides examples of the initiation of criminal proceedings against the crime of genocide as one of the crimes against the peace and security of mankind. Special attention is paid to issues of international law, as well as judicial precedents concerning the consideration of disputes on this issue. The role of the International Military Tribunal for War Criminals of the European Axis Countries (Nuremberg Tribunal) in the formulation and subsequent consolidation of the rule on crimes of aggression is emphasized. In his research, the author uses such methods as historical, systematic, formal-legal, comparative, as well as methods of analysis, deduction and formal logic. The author's special contribution to the consideration of this issue is the study of the historical and philosophical foundations, the moral and ethical side of making genocide norms retroactive from both the point of view of international and national criminal law, as well as the study of the speeches of defenders and prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials on the issue under consideration. The main result of the study is the author's conclusion about the need to consolidate in the legislation of the Russian Federation the provision on the need to make the criminal law retroactive in relation to crimes against the peace and security of mankind by amending part 2 of Article 10 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Expanding the definition of this rule would also simplify criminal procedural activities in the context of the initiation of criminal cases in these circumstances and their investigation.

aggressive war, war, aggression, international law, criminal law, the reverse force, A crime against peace, historical memory, crimes against humanity, The historical truth