The Supreme International Crime: On Power and Inequalities in Light of the Special Tribunal for Aggression Against Ukraine

Abstract The crime of aggression remains underexplored from a criminological perspective. This article addresses that omission by structuring it around three lines of inquiry. Firstly, it places the crime of aggression within the study of political and state crime, arguing that it occupies a marginal position in the literature and resists clean classification under existing theoretical definitional frameworks. Secondly, it examines impunity and the structural inequalities sustaining it through the lens of the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine. While the Tribunal represents an important step towards accountability and a significant development in international criminal law, it finds that immunities embedded within its jurisdictional architecture risk reproducing existing power inequalities. Finally, the article considers how these patterns might be challenged. It argues that a victim-centred approach, informed by the transitional justice paradigm, could offer a structural corrective, capable of contesting these inequalities while contributing to addressing survivors’ demands for justice.