3:07 p.m. ET, March 17, 2023
Here’s what we know about the International Criminal Court and why it’s issuing an arrest warrant for Putin
By CNN’s Rob Picheta and Zachary B. Wolf An exterior view of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands in 2021. (Piroschka van de Wouw/Portal) The International Criminal Court, which operates independently, is located in The Hague, Netherlands , and was created by a treaty called the Rome Statute, which was first brought before the United Nations.
Most of the world’s countries – 123 of them – are parties to the treaty, but there are a few notable exceptions, including Russia, as well as the US, Ukraine and China.
The ICC is intended to be a court of “last instance” and is not intended to replace a country’s judicial system. The court, composed of 18 judges serving nine years, deals with four types of crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, crimes of aggression and war crimes.
Putin’s arrest warrant: The ICC on Friday issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova over alleged plans to deport Ukrainian children to Russia. The court said there was “reasonable reason to believe that Mr. Putin bears individual criminal responsibility” for the alleged crimes because he committed them alongside others and for “his failure to exercise control over civilian and military subordinates, who committed the acts to exercise properly. ”
Reports of Ukrainian children in Russia: The Ukrainian government says many missing children were forcibly brought to Russia. The Russian government does not deny taking in Ukrainian children and has made their adoption by Russian families a centerpiece of propaganda.
Some of the children landed thousands of kilometers and several time zones away from Ukraine. According to the Lvova-Belova office, Ukrainian children were sent to institutions and foster families in 19 different Russian regions, including the regions of Novosibirsk, Omsk and Tyumen in Siberia and Murmansk in the Arctic.
In April 2022, the Lvova-Belova office said around 600 children from Ukraine were placed in orphanages in Kursk and Nizhny Novgorod before being sent to families in the Moscow region. According to the Moscow regional governor, as of mid-October, 800 children from eastern Ukraine’s Donbass were living in the Moscow region, many with families.
UN Report on Alleged War Crimes: The United Nations said in a report Thursday that war crimes committed by Russia included “attacks on civilians and energy-related infrastructure, premeditated killings, unlawful detention, torture, rape and other sexual violence, and unlawful rendition and deportation of children.”
So will Putin actually be arrested?: Probably not.
Anyone accused of a crime within the court’s jurisdiction, which includes countries that are members of the International Criminal Court, can be tried. The court is testing people, not countries, and focuses on those who bear the greatest responsibility: leaders and officials. Although Ukraine is not a member of the court, it has previously accepted its jurisdiction.
The ICC does not conduct absentee trials, so Putin would either have to be extradited from Russia or arrested outside of Russia. That seems unlikely.
CNN’s editorial research department contributed to this post.