ICC has issued arrest warrants against Mr. Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, and Ms. Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation on March 17, 2023, for being responsible for the war crimes of illegally deporting and transferring children from the occupied territories of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.
ICC – the International Criminal Court was established by an international treaty called Rome Statute to try individuals for the gravest crimes like genocide, war crimes, etc. It started functioning in 2002. ICC has 123 member states. Interestingly, powerful countries like USA, China, and Russia are not members of the ICC. The list of non-members also includes India, Pakistan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, and Ukraine.
Thus, neither Ukraine nor Russia is a member of the ICC. However, ICC started investigating Ukraine’s situation because of a declaration by the government of Ukraine in 2015 that they were accepting ICC jurisdiction “for the purpose of identifying, prosecuting and judging the perpetrators and accomplices of acts committed in the territory of Ukraine since February 2014”.
ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor is central to its judicial process. The prosecutor is elected for a nine-year term by the representatives of the member states. Luis Moreno Ocampo from Argentina was the first prosecutor elected in 2003. After his tenure, Fatou Bensouda from Gambia became the prosecutor. She has been succeeded by the current prosecutor Karim Ahmed Khan, a British national, who took office in 2021. The prosecutor is responsible for selecting alleged crimes for investigation and onward trial. First, the prosecutor examines the issues of jurisdiction, admissibility, and the interests of justice. The prosecutor may decide not to proceed with a full investigation if these issues are not resolved to his/her satisfaction. If the full investigation establishes the crimes reasonably then the prosecutor may request a Pre-Trial Chamber of judges to issue a summons or arrest warrant against the person who committed the crime.
So, now, in course of ICC’s judicial proceedings, Mr. Putin will be arrested and taken to the ICC’s detention center in Hague, the Netherlands. He will then be produced before the court for trial. If he is convicted in the trial, he will be jailed. But who will arrest him or where will he be jailed? The ICC doesn’t have a police force or prison. ICC depends on its member states’ cooperation on these matters. Thus, it seems that the actual purpose of the arrest warrant is not to bring Mr. Putin to justice for his alleged war crimes, but for something else.
ICC has so far registered 22 cases of war crimes for trial. Interestingly, all of the accused are from Africa. What happened to the war crimes committed in other parts of the world? Well, there are a few instances when ICC considered that too. For example, during Fatou Bensouda’s tenure, a preliminary examination found credible evidence that members of the UK armed forces perpetrated various forms of abuse against detained Iraqi civilians. However, the preliminary examination was closed in 2020 since ‘none of the potential cases arising from the situation would be admissible before the ICC at the present time.’
Fatou Bensouda also tried to investigate alleged war crimes committed by US armed forces. In November 2017, as reported by James McAuley in the Washington Post, she made a formal request for authorization to investigate the U.S. military and CIA for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan. Her efforts were met with a fierce reaction from the United States.
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This article was published in the Daily Sun on April 8, 2023. Please read the full article here or here.