La decisione della Corte penale internazionale nel caso Ongwen e la rilevanza delle cause di esclusione della responsabilità individuale

This paper analyses the judgment recently issued by the International Criminal Court in The Procurator v. Dominic Ongwen, with specific relevance to the defences under Article 31 of the Statute of the International Criminal Court. Notwithstanding his original condition of child soldier, the ICC found the accused, a former commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army, guilty of several dozens of war crimes and crimes against humanity, committed in Northern Uganda between 1 July 2002 and 31 December 2005. On the one hand, the acts examined during the proceedings were all committed many years after the forced conscription, when the accused had reached adulthood. On the other hand, the fact that the accused was, in turn, the victim of a crime is considered as a mitigating circumstance and not as a defence in respect of the commission of international crimes.