“Current judicial institutions cannot bring all the culprits to justice. Consequently,” Volodymyr Zelensky said at an international conference on war crimes in Ukraine.
Article written by
Published
Reading time : 1 min.
Volodymyr Zelensky calls for international justice. The Ukrainian president asked, Thursday, July 14, the establishment of a “special court” to investigate the Russian invasion, addressing an international conference on war crimes in Ukraine held in The Hague.
“Current judicial institutions cannot bring all the culprits to justice. Consequently, a special tribunal is needed to try the crimes of Russian aggression against Ukraine”has explained Volodymyr Zelensky in a video shown at the conference. Political, diplomatic and judicial leaders from around the world gathered Thursday in The Hague, seat of international justice, for a conference on accountability for crimes committed in Ukraine since February 24.
Organized by the International Criminal Court (ICC) the European Commission and the Netherlands, the event aimed to ensure that crimes committed since the Russian invasion “don’t go unpunished”. ICC prosecutor Karim Khan opened an investigation into possible war crimes committed in Ukraine in early March, after receiving the green light from 43 states.
But this court, which has been prosecuting the perpetrators of the worst atrocities in the world for twenty years, cannot prosecute the crime of aggression if the country has not ratified the Rome Statute, which is the case of Russia and Ukraine. The question of a special tribunal is donit “a very valid point”Wopke Hoekstra, Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, told reporters after the conference. “I think the matter is worth investigating.” He has conceded, however, that this “probably won’t be easy”.