French investigators from the National Gendarmerie stand next to a mass grave in Boutcha in the Kyiv region on April 12. MAXYM MARUSENKO / PHOTO ONLY VIA AFP
Ukraine is stepping up its diplomatic offensive to create a special international court for the crime of aggression, the only way Kyiv says Vladimir Putin can be personally and quickly troubled by international justice. The Russian president could theoretically be targeted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. But in addition to the fact that these investigations are generally part of a multi-year process, Ukraine fears that the prosecutor of this international jurisdiction will not find evidence of direct orders linking the top of the Russian state with the crimes committed by soldiers in Contact in occupied Ukrainian cities.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy devoted part of his speech delivered by videoconference to the United Nations General Assembly on September 21 to the proposed court on the crime of aggression. Believing that Russia “must pay for this war,” he believes that the creation of such an ad hoc tribunal “will send a message to all potential aggressors to show them that they must respect the peace.” “. The following day, September 22, he announced the formation of a working group in Kyiv to lead to the “rapid creation” of this tribunal, notably with Ministers of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba and Minister of Justice Denys Malyuska. and Ukrainian Ambassador for International Humanitarian Law Anton Korynevych.
Western support
The announcement by the President of Ukraine is in fact only the formalization of a cell set up in the first days of the war after the Franco-British lawyer Philippe Sands proposed on February 28 the creation of a special tribunal for the crime of aggression, op-ed published in the Financial Times. Convinced that Vladimir Putin “poses the most serious challenge to the post-1945 international order,” Mr. Sands proposed that a court, modeled on the Nuremberg Tribunal and through a multilateral treaty, be established “to investigate Putin and his acolytes.” about the crime of aggression, which at the time of the trial of Nazi dignitaries was labeled a “crime against peace”.
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The diplomatic plan and legal framework were then prepared for six months by diplomats and lawyers in Kyiv with the help of their foreign advisers. Mr. Zelensky’s speech and announcement is now linked to the fact that Ukraine wants to seek the support of four western capitals, Washington, London, Berlin and what they see as the most reluctant, Paris.
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