Russian President Vladimir Putin is claiming Ukraine is his territory. [크렘린궁]
The bodies of civilians are found all over the streets of the Ukrainian town of Bucha. [우크라이나 외무장관 트위터]The international community is outraged after the fact that the Russian military massacred civilians in Ukrainian bureaus and other places was revealed one after another. Bucha is a small town with a population of about 37,000, located 37 km northwest of the capital Kiiu. After the Russian army invaded Ukraine on February 24 (local time), Bucha and other cities around Kiiu were occupied for a month, and using this as a stepping stone, they attacked Kiiu. However, on April 1, he withdrew from the bucha, without taking control of Kiiwu.
Victims shot while bound
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Irina Benedictova said at least 410 bodies of civilians brutally murdered by the Russian army in 30 towns and villages around Kiiu, including Bucha, Hostomell and Irfin, after the Russian troops retreated on April 3, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Irina Benedictova said to have been corrected.
In particular, the largest number of civilian casualties occurred in the Bucha. The bodies of civilians were found all over the streets. There were 18 bodies shot behind the head with their hands tied behind their backs, and a mass burial of 280 bodies was also confirmed. Some of the bodies were in black envelopes, while others had protruding limbs. Some of them also showed signs of torture, such as having their ears cut off or their teeth being forcibly pulled out. Even the bodies of teenagers between the ages of 14 and 16 were found. Deputy Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk said: “Many of the bodies buried were executed with chains.” In Irfin, there were even testimonies from local residents that the withdrawing Russian army used children as ‘human shields’ by riding them in front of tanks and armored vehicles. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky defined Russia’s atrocities against civilians as ‘genocide’, arguing that “Russia is trying to annihilate the country and the entire people of Ukraine.” President Zelensky also compared the massacre of civilians by the Russian military to the Islamic State (IS) extremist group and demanded that Russia be expelled from the UN Security Council.
Countries around the world, including the United States and the European Union, have condemned the actions of the Russian military as ‘war crimes’. US President Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a ‘war criminal’ and emphasized that “we must gather all the evidence and put Putin on trial.” French President Emmanuel Macron said there were “very clear clues” that Russian forces committed war crimes in Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also criticized the “perpetrators”. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said: “The responsible must be punished”. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply shocked to see the civilians killed in the truck” and that “an independent investigation is essential to ensure accountability.”
In order to punish the actions of the Russian military as war crimes, the most important thing is to find out the truth. Genocide refers to the mass killing of a specific national, ethnic, racial, religious, or political group with the aim of annihilating them in whole or in part. A typical example is the Holocaust (genocide of Jews) in Nazi Germany during World War II. There are also cases such as the Killing Fields Massacre in Khmer Rouge, Cambodia, which killed 2 million people in the 1970s, and the Srebrenica Massacre in Bosnia in the 1990s. U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blincoln said that “we will examine all available evidence to determine what happened in Ukraine and who is responsible.” “The EU is helping Ukraine and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to collect the necessary evidence of Russian war crimes in international tribunals,” said Charles Michel, the European Commission’s permanent chairman. “President Putin, the commander of the entire Russian army, and everyone who gives orders and orders must be punished,” Zelensky said.
Putin’s war criminal punishment ‘picking the stars’
If so, is it possible to punish Putin as a war criminal at the request of the international community? A war criminal is a person who has committed war crimes, such as having waged wars of aggression or violating the rules and customs of war under international law in the course of carrying out war. The leaders of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan that started World War II are representative examples. And the definition of this war criminal was expanded in the 1990s with the civil war in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. The international community defines war criminals as “those who commit ethnic cleansing, genocide and crimes against humanity because of different religions and ethnicities.” The most feasible way to punish Putin as a war criminal is to hold him accountable as the commander-in-chief of the military. This is because if the commander-in-chief of the military ordered, knew, was in a position to recognize, or tolerated a crime, he could be held comprehensively legally responsible based on this.
Accordingly, it is worth paying attention to whether Putin can be punished by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which deals with disputes between states, and the International Criminal Court (ICC), which deals with individual war crimes. However, even if the ICJ convicts the Russian military and President Putin, punishment is impossible because the execution is entrusted to the UN Security Council. If Russia, one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, exercises its veto power, it cannot be punished.
The ICC, on the other hand, can prosecute Putin on charges of genocide and other violations if it is proved that Russian military war crimes and President Putin’s instructions or acquiescence are proven. The ICC is the first permanent international tribunal established in 2002 under the Rome Treaty to punish individuals who have committed genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression. The ICC has already sent an investigation team to Ukraine to identify various war crimes by the Russian military, and has also opened an online portal to receive reports from witnesses. “The targeting of civilians is a clear war crime,” said ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan. The ICC can try anyone who has been prosecuted in any country it has jurisdiction over, including its 123 member states. The ICC has so far indicted two incumbent heads of state, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya and Omar al-Bashir of Sudan.
However, the ICC must present the suspect in court in The Hague, the Netherlands, before proceeding with the trial. This is because, according to the Treaty of Rome, a trial cannot be held in absentia. If the accused cannot be recruited, the trial cannot be conducted. Of course, the ICC could issue an arrest warrant for Putin. The problem is that an arrest warrant cannot be enforced unless Putin resigns from power in a coup or other coup in Russia. Russia’s new government can only hand over Putin’s recruits to the ICC. Another obstacle is that Russia signed the Treaty of Rome, the basis of the ICC, but withdrew from ratification in 2016 after delaying ratification. When President Putin visits an ICC member state, it is possible for that member state to issue an arrest warrant to secure new recruits, but in reality, it is difficult to see. For this reason, it is no exaggeration to say that the ICC’s punishment of Putin as a war criminal is ‘picking the stars in the sky’.
Nevertheless, looking at past cases, special courts have often been established to punish the supreme national or military leader as war criminals. One example is the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal, established in 1945 right after World War II by the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union to punish Nazi German war criminals. Twenty-four war criminals were punished, excluding some key figures, such as Adolf Hitler, who committed suicide at the time. At the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, set up by the Allied Powers in Tokyo in 1946, the Japanese prime minister and military leaders were sentenced to death as war criminals. The Japanese monarch was not prosecuted because of public considerations and problems with proving the charges.
Pressure to stop Russian war crimes
The international condemnation of war crimes was also carried out in a special tribunal established according to a UN Security Council resolution. The former Yugoslav International Criminal Court, established in 1993, is a prime example. Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was indicted and tried in 2002, and died in prison in 2006. Milosevic was charged with over 60 wars and crimes against humanity in the Balkans, including the Kosovo Wars (1998-1999), the Croatian Wars (1991-1995), and the Bosnian Wars (1992-1995). was charged with the murder of In 2012, a special court in Sierra Leone sentenced former Liberia president Charles Taylor to 50 years in prison. Former President Taylor is the first among the world’s current and former supreme leaders to be condemned by an international court. Taylor was convicted of intervening in a civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone, the world’s largest diamond producer, in a decade from 1991 and assisting rebels in the killing of 120,000 people.
As such, there is a way to open an international war crimes tribunal in which NATO, including the United States, and the EU, etc. will have President Putin as the accused. Of course, it is also a way for the Russian people to remove President Putin, who committed war crimes, from power and bring him to international judgment. However, in reality, it is not highly feasible. Nevertheless, it seems that the only way to stop the Russian military’s war crimes is to pressure the international community to punish Putin as a war criminal.
Janghoon Lee, Analyst for International Affairs truth21c@empas.com
