On Friday, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued two arrest warrants, including one against the Russian president. We are talking about a serious breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Putin could be arrested in any state in the world.
It’s a thunderclap in the middle of the war in Ukraine. On Friday, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights in Russia. Reason: the master of the Kremlin “is presumed responsible for the war crime of illegal deportation of population (children) and illegal transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation”. For the ICC, there are “reasonable grounds to believe that [Vladimir] Putin is personally responsible” for these crimes which were committed at least from February 24, 2022, the date of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
State obligation
The deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children to re-education centers in Russia, where they would be subjected to a process of “Russification”, has been the subject of a priority investigation by the ICC, according to its prosecutor general, the British Karim Khan. From the start of the war, the ICC opened an investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine. Although underfunded, it sent more than 40 experts to Ukraine to investigate and collect evidence.
What effects will the issuance of such an arrest warrant have? Russia is not a state party to the Rome Statute establishing the ICC. Neither has Ukraine, but it has accepted the jurisdiction of the ICC over its territory. Andrew Clapham, professor of international law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID), points out however: “If one of the two persons subject to the arrest warrants travels to a State party to the Statute of Rome, he can be arrested and sent to The Hague. However, the question arises of the immunity of a Head of State before a national court. But on closer analysis of the ICC statement, Andrew Clapham comes to another conclusion: “Art. 8 (2) (a) (vii) of the Rome Statute means that it is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention in its article 147. This means that Vladimir Putin can be arrested in any country of the world. All states on the planet have ratified the Geneva Conventions, including Russia. It is a crime of universal jurisdiction. Each State has the obligation to arrest the person subject to such a warrant.”
Read also: States call for the creation of a special tribunal to try the crime of Russian aggression in Ukraine
In this case, the responsibility of the Russian president is that of a superior in the chain of command, not military, but civilian. It is the authority of a politician who directly or indirectly ordered Russian forces to deport thousands of Ukrainian children. Andrew Clapham adds that even Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions of 1977, ratified by both Russia and Ukraine, has been seriously violated. “It’s quite rare,” adds the IHEID professor, author of the book. War (2021).
We are still a long way from seeing Vladimir Putin in the prisons of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, but the moment is of major importance. Liz Evenson, of the NGO Human Rights Watch, points out: “This action by the ICC shows that no one is above international law. It is a warning message that will encourage the ICC to continue its investigative work. This shows that justice is not just an abstraction, but produces concrete effects. Justice works, no matter how long it takes to try criminals.”
Kremlin denial
The Kremlin reacted to the ICC’s decision through its spokesman Dmitry Peskov: “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.” Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, one of the most radical figures of the Putin clan, went one better: “The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin. No need to explain where this paper should be used.” But, as Andrew Clapham explains, this focus on the lack of jurisdiction of the ICC does not hold because the ICC refers to a serious violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, ratified by all the States of the planet. This simple fact also risks greatly complicating Vladimir Putin’s future travels. The latter will no longer be safe from being arrested one day in a State that will have the courage to assume its obligation imposed by the Geneva Conventions.
Former ambassador for war crimes during the presidency of Barack Obama and ex-chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Stephen Rapp makes this clear to the Temps“This arrest warrant makes Putin a pariah. If he travels, he risks arrest. And this threat will never go away. Moreover, Russia will never be able to free itself from the sanctions to which it is subject without complying with the two arrest warrants. In the end, Putin may well end up in The Hague like Serbian Presidents Slobodan Milosevic and Liberian President Charles Taylor. Otherwise, he will end up isolated with this warrant hanging over his head like a sword of Damocles.” After issuing a similar warrant, Milosevic is said to have lost much of his legitimacy in Serbia itself.
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