The World Revolutionary Origins of the Crime of Aggression: Sovereignty, (Anti-)Imperialism, and the Soviet Union’s Contradictory Geopolitics of Global Justice

Despite the importance of Soviet influences in developing an international legal basis for holding individuals criminally liable for planning and waging aggressive war at Nuremberg, relatively little research has been done on this innovation’s place within the broader Soviet agenda. In addressing this gap, this article provides a multifaceted account of how the criminalization of war both complemented and contradicted the Soviet Union’s prime objective of furthering world revolution. This entails a narrative that connects pivotal points in Soviet history from early critiques of imperialism to the experience of the Second World War to contentious appeals to the Third World in the decolonization context. While riddled with contradictions, these Soviet lessons have much to teach us in a contemporary global order where the crime of aggression is now within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, yet the underlying geopolitical aspects that have long animated this project demand further theoretical engagement.