Addition for the archived version
A year after the International Court of Justice in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, a total of 44 countries have already expressed support for a special military tribunal to try Russian war criminals.
The new ICC president, Tomoko Akane, has expressed confidence that the Russian president will not escape accountability, and Putin has notably avoided traveling to countries where he could potentially be arrested.
Legal experts affiliated with the ICC and past international tribunals affirmed that the time for a fair trial will come — even if not immediately.
In the meantime, Ukrainian law enforcement officers are hard at work gathering evidence of Russian war crimes, thereby laying the groundwork for charges against specific perpetrators. Putting Putin himself on trial will be a difficult legal and logistical task, but it is one that most experts believe is feasible.
From the article:
“Of course, the most important crime he could be charged with is the crime of aggression [a crime committed by a state or individuals in an armed conflict against a sovereign state]. This is a crime that the ICC cannot try because Russia has not signed the Rome Statute, which sets out the definition of this crime.”
What?
Can’t be accused of breaking rules if your never sign up to the game in the first place. 9000+ IQ move.
Would be a stunning achievement and a victory for rules based international order. Might even prevent a world war, if I can be outrageously optimistic.
Putin will probably say that Russia is not the USSR and did not sign the Geneva Conventions, just as he did with the 1994 Budapest Memorandum that gave security guarantees to Ukraine in exchange for surrendering her nuclear weapons.
I doubt that he will be tried for anything. His most likely end is by assassination, as he’s done to so many opponents. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
