The European Union, the United States, the International Criminal Court and Ukraine have joined forces in the hope of eventually bringing the Russian leaders to justice for their aggression towards Ukraine. This was done on Monday at Eurojust’s office in The Hague the International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine (ICPA) was launched.
The ICPA itself, which will also operate from The Hague, will not be able to prosecute Russians. It will especially assist in coordinating the preparation of court cases. “It will be a coordination center,” said Ladislav Hamran, the leader of Eurojust, at a press conference. “We will collect and analyze evidence.”
At first glance, this seems like a modest ambition. But according to the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, who was also present, that does not alter the fact that the ICPA can play an important role. Never before has evidence been gathered at such an early stage to prosecute such crimes. Reynders: “What we are doing now is exceptional because we are doing it while the war is still going on, not afterwards.”
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin also spoke of a “truly historic moment, when the civilized world not only declares but also shows through concrete actions that accountability is the most important thing.” He said he hopes Russia’s leadership will eventually have to answer to an international tribunal for its aggression against Ukraine.
The International Criminal Court also makes expertise available to the ICPA. Although a greater role for the ICC would have been obvious, this is not yet on the agenda. Russia is not a party to the ICC. Neither is Ukraine, by the way. Although it has signed the statute, the Ukrainian parliament has not yet ratified the treaty. Kostin assured that the latter will happen soon. The US, despite its support for the ICPA, is also not a party to the ICC.
A complication is also that ‘the crime of aggression’, as in the case of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, does not fall within the competence of the ICC or any other international court. The definition of the concept has also not yet been clearly crystallized.
The ICC issued an indictment this spring against Russian President Putin and an employee for a more specific crime: the deportation of hundreds of Ukrainian children.
Despite the involvement of several multilateral organizations in the ICPA, the most likely route to persecution of Russia’s leaders is currently through national states, especially Ukraine itself. Ukraine has already brought 312 charges for Russian crimes on Ukrainian territory, partly in the absence of defendants residing in Russia.
The Ukrainian judiciary also receives assistance from many European countries and Eurojust within the so-called Joint Investigation Teams (JIT), joint investigation teams investigating war crimes during the war in Ukraine.
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