Moscow has said it does not recognise the jurisdiction of the international criminal court in The Hague, after reports that the court is expected to seek its first arrest warrants against Russian individuals over the war in Ukraine.
“We do not recognise this court; we do not recognise its jurisdiction,” Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told journalists in Moscow on Tuesday morning.
The New York Times and Reuters news agency reported on Monday that the prosecutor at the international criminal court (ICC) would formally open two war crimes cases and issue arrest warrants for several Russians deemed responsible for the mass abduction of Ukrainian children and the targeting of Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.
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No warrants for criminals in the Ukrainian govt? Selective woke justice.
ReplyDeleteThere are no credible reports of systemic war crimes being perpetrated by Ukraine.
ReplyDeleteGet real. Donbass, well known terror of Russian speakers. Destruction of monasteries list goes on.
ReplyDeleteNo credible evidence exists supporting these claims. The sources are entirely Russian propaganda and have been dismissed by the pretty much the entire international community.
ReplyDeleteAnd now persecution of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church by their government.
ReplyDeletePeskov is technically not wrong. International courts like the ICC are generally created by treaty, and only have the jurisdiction granted them by States that sign and ratify the treaty. Russia is not a party to the Rome Statute (nor is the US, China, or India), and so the ICC has no jurisdiction on Russian territory. Also, while it's true under international law that sitting heads of state don't have immunity before international courts, they do have immunity from arrest and detention by another State. The ICC doesn't have its own enforcement mechanism, and relies on States parties to Rome Statute to execute arrest warrants. There's currently some controversy in international law over whether a sitting head of state of a State not party to the Rome Statute can be arrested by another State, even when that other State is acting pursuant to its obligations under the Rome Statute.
ReplyDeleteThe ICC, unsurprisingly, has said there is no immunity from arrest in that situation, and several European countries have passed laws to that effect. But the case of Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir shows that a lot of African and Middle Eastern countries may not necessarily agree, even when there is a UN Security Council Resolution (which unlike the non-binding ones from the GA, actually has some teeth) serving as the basis for the ICC's jurisdiction. Bashir travelled to a lot of Rome Statute States parties without suffering arrest or detention. Ultimately, the issue of head-of-state immunity is one of customary international law, defined as the longstanding, widespread, consistent practice of states performed out of a sense of binding obligation. So what States do and why they say they're doing it is what controls here, not anything coming out of the ICC.
All of this is a very long-winded way of saying that the arrest warrant doesn't change much. Putin already wasn't travelling to the countries where he would be detained, and his closest allies on the international stage are still countries where he wouldn't be. State Department officials have allegedly said privately that the US hopes this gets more countries to condemn the invasion and put diplomatic pressure on Russia to end it, and I think that's the most anyone can hope for.