This is the first time that the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin, for allegedly perpetrating war crimes of unlawfully deporting and transferring children from Ukraine to Russia
The crimes were allegedly committed in occupied territory. An arrest warrant was also issued against Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s Commissioner for Child Rights.
Putin and Belova are allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation and transfer of children from Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation under articles 8(2)(a)(vii) and 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute.
This relates to the “unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement”, the latter relates to the direct or indirect transfer of its own civilian population by an occupying power into the occupied territory or the deportation or transfer of the population of the occupied territory within or outside its territory.
The ICC has reasons to believe that Putin is culpable (i) having committed the acts directly, jointly with others, and/or through others under article 25(3)(a) of the Rome Statute (ii) his failure to exercise control properly over civilian & military subordinates under his effective authority, committing or allowing the commission of such acts, as per article 28(b) of the Rome Statute.
The ICC was founded to prosecute the most heinous offences only when a country’s own legal machinery fails to act. The ICC prosecutes individuals. However, the ICC’s jurisdiction is limited to offences occurring after it came into effect on July 1, 2002.
Additionally, the offences should be committed either in a country that ratified the agreement or by a national of a ratifying country. The UN Security Council can also refer cases to the ICC.
While Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the move would lead to “historic accountability”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia found this “outrageous and unacceptable”. He also said that any decision of the court was “null and void” due to Russia not being an ICC member.
However, this move creates a situation where Putin risks arrest every time he travels. According to The New York Times, this move, along with the existing sanctions in the West, will further deepen his isolation and limit his overseas movements. Moreover, if he travels to a state party to the ICC, then that country must arrest him according to its obligations under international law.
This is the first time that the ICC has issued an arrest warrant against one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.
According to the ICC’s official website, “Ukraine is not a State Party to the Rome Statute”, but it has twice exercised its options to accept ICC’s jurisdiction over alleged crimes under the Rome Statute, occurring on its territory, under Article 12(3) of the Statute.
Article 12(3) states that if the acceptance of a state that is not a party to the statute is required, the state may accept the jurisdiction of the court for a crime concerned, by making a declaration to the Registrar and cooperating without any delay or exception.
The alleged crimes, including the deportation of children, were detailed in a report by the “Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine”, an UN-mandated investigative body that said some acts may amount to crimes against humanity.
The Commission outlined in a report on March 16 stated that a “wide range of violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law in many regions of Ukraine and the Russian Federation.” Many of these amount to war crimes and include willful killings, attacks on civilians, unlawful confinement, torture, rape, and forced transfers and deportations of children, the report states.
The Russian armed forces carried out attacks with explosives in populated areas with “an apparent disregard for civilian harm and suffering”, the report documented the indiscriminate, disproportionate attacks and failure to take precautions, thereby violating international humanitarian law.
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