Putin and Lavrov cannot be arrested: Ukraine has found a way to do
Polls show that most Ukrainians support the idea of creating a special international tribunal to hold Russian leaders and guilty crimes. The war, started by Russia, is unfair in terms of international law and violates the provisions of the UN Charter. At the same time, Article 51 of the UN Charter enables Ukraine to exercise its right to self -defense from the aggressor.
The creation of the International Tribunal on Russia's aggression against Ukraine is one of the components of the Presidential Presidential formula of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky. This peace plan was supported by leading international organizations, and its provisions became the basis of the UN General Assembly resolution of February 23, 2023.
If international law is not able to create effective punishment mechanisms for unprovoked aggression, it will be the end of international law, and it is increasingly being said on the leading legal sites of the world. Achieving such an ambitious goal requires a long and painstaking work of specialists. On September 22, 2022, the President, by his decree, created a working group on elaboration of the creation of a special international tribunal on the crime of aggression against Ukraine.
The group prepared the necessary materials for the creation of the tribunal, in particular, it developed several options for constituent documents for its formation, regulations of work and jurisdiction. The samples were the tribunals in Nuremberg (against Nazi Germany), the Tokyo Tribunal (against militaristic Japan), a tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Consultations with international experts who were directly engaged in the work of such tribunals were conducted.
All experiences have been transferred to our foreign partners, there is a constant dialogue on the possibility of forming the international tribunal. The International Criminal Court in the Hague also collects evidence of Russia's war crimes, but this court has a restriction-it cannot judge the President, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Therefore, the International Criminal Court will consider certain military crimes of the Russian military, but not the highest leaders of the Russian Federation. At the end of February 2023, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, attended Ukraine, met with the President of Ukraine and responsible officials. The working coordination of Ukrainian law enforcement agencies with the ISS specialists has been established.
The creation of a special international tribunal can get around the problem of immunity of senior officials. The correctness of this approach was repeatedly confirmed by the CEO of the International Bar Association Mark Ellis. The doctor is known to have worked as an adviser to the Legal Affairs of the Independent International Commission from Kosovo and was appointed an OSCE consultant for the creation of a Serbian Tribunal for Military Crimes.
We agree that the decision of the tribunal can be made by the UN or a group of countries. Thus, the Nuremberg tribunal formed 4 states, Tokyo - 11 states. With regard to the UN decision, the issue of creating a tribunal may be blocked during a vote in the Security Council, but it can be supported by a majority of votes at a meeting of the General Assembly.
The subject of consideration of the tribunal should be a crime of aggression, and the defendants - 19 members of the Security Council of the Russian Federation. The cases of military and civilian leaders who have the greatest personal guilt for the resolution of war and commission of war crimes and acts of state terrorism may also be considered. Propagandists must also be punished, guilty of hostility and inciting war crimes.
In Nuremberg, one of the accused was Julius Shtikher - the editor of the Sturmovik newspaper. He was executed by the decision of the tribunal. In the Hague within the framework of the international criminal tribunal, Rwanda is judged by Felicien Kabugu - the owner of the radio thousand hills and the organizer of genocide.
Currently, individual representatives of European countries are proposing to create a "hybrid tribunal" - this is when the case will be considered by the Tribunal on the basis of the Ukrainian Court, but with the involvement of foreign judges. However, we are struggling to create a larger tribunal. The decision to create it should be made by the UN General Assembly, the European Union Council, or several dozen countries.
Then the sentences of such a tribunal and its warrants will have much more weight. On January 19, 2023, the European Parliament approved a resolution stating: "The European Union and its members should seek the creation of a special international tribunal to prosecute the crime of aggression against Ukraine, committed by the political and military leadership of Russia. " 472 votes were cast for "against" - 19, "abstained" - 33.
On January 26, 2023, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a resolution to support the creation of a special international tribunal. More than ten countries have already supported the idea of creating a tribunal. Among them: Lithuania, Poland, Estonia, Greece, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Latvia. In general, Ukraine is now working with 25 countries that conduct consultations and coordinate their activities to develop a tribunal model against Russia.
To promote the Ukrainian plan for the punishment of the aggressor and the creation of an influential international tribunal requires the consolidation of all interested actions - Ukrainian diplomats, international partners, parliamentary delegations and civil society. Voting of respected international institutes is a consequence of our information campaigns and diplomatic talks.