Excellencies, dear colleagues, it is a great pleasure to welcome you all today here in Kampala to resume our work on the crime of aggression. Before I begin I would like with your permission to take a moment to remember a friend of ours, a friend of the Court and a champion of international justice: Whitney Harris, who passed away several weeks ago. Along with Ben Ferencz, Whitney represented the Nuremberg Prosecutors in Rome and with Ben urged us passionately to do the right thing in making the ICC a reality. He was a kind and decent man of prodigious talent and someone who will be sorely missed. We ask his friend and colleague, Leila Sadat, to pass on our condolences to his family, hoping that after a rich and important life he will rest in peace.

The eyes of international justice are upon us these days, not only with respect to stocktaking but also with respect to the crime of aggression. As you all know, we have come a very long way on this issue. In Rome, the very proposition of including the crime of aggression in the Statute was hotly debated, and ultimately the subject of a very delicate compromise. Almost 12 years later, things look very different: the crime of aggression has been added to the Rome Statute as one of the four core crimes. This is an important reality that greatly distinguishes Kampala from Rome. Aggression is already in the Statute.