The International Criminal Court has launched an investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine, an early step in a process that could potentially lead to charges against Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Kremlin leaders in The Hague.
ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan said this week that he would launch an investigation “as soon as possible”, including violations already committed, as well as any new alleged crimes falling within my jurisdiction that have been committed by any country in the conflict on each side of the territory of Ukraine. “
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia “strongly rejects” the investigation, noting that Russia is not part of the ICC, TASS reported.
Ukraine has been seeking an ICC investigation since 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea. In 2019, the judicial prosecutor’s office found reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes – including deliberate targeting of civilians, torture and sexual violence – were committed in the eastern regions, where Russian-backed separatists are fighting the central government. But prosecutors, hampered by other cases and facing obstacles, including the Covid-19 pandemic, have suspended the investigation in Ukraine.
Russia’s February invasion changed that calculation. Mr Hahn, a British lawyer who began a nine-year term as third prosecutor at the ICC in June, said the effort would require further support from world governments. “I will continue to follow developments in Ukraine closely and will once again call for restraint and strict adherence to the applicable rules of international humanitarian law,” he said. He invited anyone with relevant information to contact his office by email: [email protected].
Both the United States and Russia have had unstable relations with the ICC. Washington helped negotiate a permanent international war crimes tribunal in the 1990s to replace ad hoc tribunals set up by the United Nations to prosecute humanitarian crimes in the Yugoslav and Rwanda conflicts. President Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute of the ICC with reservations, as the treaty does not entitle the United States to block investigations of its staff. President George W. Bush has resigned amid fears.
Russia also signed but did not ratify the Rome Statute and withdrew completely in 2016 after the ICC classified the annexation of Crimea by Moscow as an occupation.
The United States and Russia have backed the referral of the UN Security Council to the International Criminal Court – those related to the Darfur region of Sudan in 2005 and Libya in 2011. The ICC has jurisdiction over countries that have ratified the Rome Statute or adopted powers. to the court for more limited purposes – as in Ukraine – or when the Security Council refers it.
In September 2020, the Trump administration, fearing a possible investigation into allegations of US war crimes in Afghanistan, banned the then ICC prosecutor and senior US aide and imposed other sanctions. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the court a “completely shattered and corrupt institution” and said the United States “will not tolerate its illegal attempts to subject Americans to its jurisdiction.”
None of the Americans has been charged in any ICC proceedings, and the Biden administration lifted sanctions last year.
–William Moldin contributed to this publication