6.6 Conclusions

In light of all of the foregoing authority, therefore, it is respectfully submitted that the second principal issue must also now be answered in the affirmative. Naturally, in the historical absence of an international criminal court, exercising a jurisdiction in international criminal law but over individual natural persons, then inevitably such authority as exists on the question of the individual responsibility for crimes under international customary law, other than as arises in connection with the specialist international tribunals established from time to time specifically to try such crimes, then such authority is inextricably tied up with the issue of the jurisdiction of municipal courts to try such crimes, which is the subject to which I shall now turn.

However, it is submitted that, bolstered also by reference to the accumulated authorities set out above on the first principal issue, namely as to the existence of a crime against peace ipso facto, there is now established in international customary law such weight of opinio juris and declaratory conventional provision, that the issue of individual personal responsibility for the commission of that crime is today equally beyond any reasonable doubt.

Consequently, I now turn to consider the third and final issue of the jurisdiction of a municipal court, such as are the Defendants to this present claim, to institute process in relation to such an offence as disclosed in the first instance under customary international law.

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