The Russian leader is being prosecuted for a war crime of “illegal deportation” of children, the judicial institution announced on Friday.
Vladimir Putin on trial for war crimes committed in Ukraine? The International Criminal Court (ICC) opened the door to this possibility on Friday 17 March. The international court, based in The Hague, the Netherlands, has issued an arrest warrant against the Russian president for the war crime of “illegal deportation” Ukrainian children since the start of the Russian invasion at the end of February 2022. Hailed in particular by the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union, this decision has been described as“historical” by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. However, the chances of Vladimir Putin being arrested are slim.
What charges are in the arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin?
“Today, 17 March 2023, Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for two individuals in connection with the situation in Ukraine: Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova”, Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights in Russia, the ICC says in a statement (in English). The Russian leader “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of illegal deportation of population (children) and illegal transfer of population (children) from the occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation”, is it detailed.
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According to the court, there is “reasonable grounds to believe that Vladimir Putin is personally responsible for the above crimes”which would have been committed “on occupied Ukrainian territory at least from February 24, 2022”. The ICC invokes in its mandate Article 8 of the Rome Statute, its founding treaty, on war crimes, which include acts of “deportation” or of “illegal transfer” of people.
Can the Russian leader be arrested?
Yes…in theory. ICC member states are required to execute arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova if they visit their territory, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan confirms to AFP when asked about the possibility of Vladimir Putin being arrested if he travels to one of the 123 countries party to the Rome Statute.
Interviewed by the Swiss daily The weatherAndrew Clapham, professor of international law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, goes even further. “Article 8 of the Rome Statute means that it is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention in its article 147, he points out. This means that Vladimir Putin can be arrested in any country in the world. Every state on the planet has ratified the Geneva Conventions, including Russia.”
But according to Matthew Waxman, a professor at Columbia Law School, quoted by AFP, “Chances are slim that Vladimir Putin will ever be arrested”. The first obstacle to a possible arrest is material. The ICC does not have its own police force, and therefore depends on the goodwill of States. Execution of mandates “depends on international cooperation”, confirms the President of the ICC, Piotr Hofmanski. If state authorities do not act, the court cannot make an arrest. This is how former Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir was able to travel to several African states in 2017 without being worried, despite an ICC arrest warrant issued against him.
If Ukraine, which is not officially a member of the international court, has accepted its jurisdiction in the context of the conflict, thus allowing the latter to prosecute Vladimir Putin, Russia is not a member of the court. . In 2016, after the opening of a court investigation into the 2008 war in Georgia, Moscow withdrew its signature from the Treaty of Rome. “Russia, like a number of states, does not recognize the jurisdiction of this court. Therefore, from the point of view of law, the decisions of this court are null and void,” said the Russian President’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, following the announcement of the arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin.
In other words, the Russian authorities have no intention of arresting their leader, “unless there is a regime change in Russia”, Cecily Rose, assistant professor of public international law at Leiden University, told AFP. It is therefore unlikely that the Russian leader will end up behind bars or sentenced, especially since, as lawyer Jeanne Sulzer reminded franceinfo in March 2022, “the ICC does not try an accused in his absence”.
Have heads of state ever been arrested and tried for war crimes?
Yes, several political and military leaders have been tried for war crimes, recalls Karim Khan. “There are so many examples of people who thought they were above the law” and that “found themselves in court”, he observed with AFP. Former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo went to prison after his arrest in 2011, accused of crimes against humanity by the ICC, which finally acquitted him.
In 2012, the ICC convicted Charles Taylor, a former warlord who became president of Liberia, for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Six years earlier, in 2006, former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic died in his cell in The Hague while being tried for genocide by the tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. In 2008, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was captured and convicted of genocide by this same court. Its military leader, Ratko Mladic, was arrested in 2011 and sentenced to life imprisonment.