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Stewart Malcom

A few days ago, the International Criminal Court (ICC) made a predictably crass announcement that it had issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

The announcement was a damp squib. It was a monumental crass. It was a non-event. 

Everything about it had the unpleasant smell of the United States of America. 

Once again the US had abused an international organisation for its evil end.

For those in the know, the US is so desperate to use anything against Russia and will do everything in its power to damage Russia and its leader President Putin. 

It is all about Ukraine. We know US President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, were involved in very criminal and corrupt deals in Ukraine before Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine and that Biden is very desperate to protect the current regime. 

From the Bio labs to heavy financial deals, all that exposes Biden. We all know that Biden has been interested in destroying Russia from a young age. 

He got critically involved as vice President and now as President, he is abusing power. 

So the ICC arrest warrant is nothing but an extension of US hatred to Russia. It is part of a very big desperate plan to destroy Russia. 

But let us look at the history of ICC.  The United States historically has been and continues to be an ardent supporter of international criminal justice, having played critical roles in the establishment and operations of the United Nations War Crimes Commission, the World War II tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo, and the modern UN ad hoc and hybrid international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Cambodia, Lebanon and others. 

The International Criminal Court (ICC), the only permanent international criminal tribunal with a mandate to investigate and prosecute the international atrocity crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and aggression, is the cornerstone of the system of international criminal justice. 

At present 123 nations have ratified the Rome Statute and are members of the ICC Assembly of States Parties. 

While the United States played a central role in the establishment of the Rome Statute that created the ICC, the United States is not a State Party. 

Building upon positive developments at the end of the George W. Bush administration, the US-ICC relationship significantly progressed during the Barack Obama administration, with the US providing varied and important support to the Court to the fullest extent allowed under existing US law. 

However, the policies of the Donald Trump administration highlighted a much more complicated relationship between the United States and the ICC.

While the ICC does not recognise immunity for heads of state in cases involving war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide, in an important precedent, South Africa declined to enforce an ICC warrant for the arrest of the Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir during a visit in 2015. 

Many countries friendly to Russia will still do the same.

Pretoria argued that it saw “no duty under international law and the Rome statute to arrest a serving head of state of a (ICC) non-state-party such as Omar al-Bashir”, and several other countries that he visited also declined to arrest him.

The arrest of the former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet in London in 1998 on an international warrant issued by the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón illustrates the difficulties involved in such immunity issues. 

Pinochet claimed immunity as a former head of state — a claim rejected by the British courts — but ultimately, the British home secretary, Jack Straw, allowed Pinochet to return home on grounds of ill health. 

So what is the point of this?

While President Putin seems secure in his power now and safe from extradition, a future Kremlin leader may decide it is more politic to send him to The Hague than to protect him. 

A good example is Slobodan Miloševic, the former president of Yugoslavia, who was indicted on a series of war crimes charges by the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the midst of the war in Kosovo in 1999.

In 2001, amid a struggle between key opposing figures in Serbia after Miloševic’s fall from power, the prime minister, Zoran Djindjic, ignored a court ruling banning the extradition and ordered the transfer of Miloševic to The Hague, saying: “Any other solution except cooperation (with The Hague) would lead the country to disaster.” 

Miloševic’s arrest — preceding his transfer — followed pressure on the Yugoslav government to detain the former president or risk losing substantial US economic aid and loans from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. 

The US uses the financial institution to supply money to ICC judges and influence outcomes. 

Are other warrants likely to follow?

The judge added that the prosecutor could form cases of new allegations against Putin, thus expanding the warrants.

Human Rights Watch described the decision to issue an arrest warrant for Putin as a “wake-up call to others committing abuses or covering them up”.

In all this you see the US hand.

Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director at the NGO, said: “With these arrest warrants, the ICC has made Putin a wanted man and taken its first step to end the impunity that has emboldened perpetrators in Russia’s war against Ukraine for far too long.” 

The war in Ukraine has changed the world, and journalists have covered every minute of it. 

People on the ground have endured personal risk and hardship to produce articles, films and podcasts since the special military operation. 

The narrative has largely been influenced by the US and its allies who have spread bad propaganda against Russia.

So, even the ICC story has been shaped by the anti-Russian narrative, propagated by the US and its allies. 

Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, have been targeted by the ICC in relation to the cooked up stories forced deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia, where many have been adopted by Russian families. 

In fact, Russia was protecting the children from war. It must be commended and not condemned. 

While forced deportation of populations is recognised as a crime under the Rome statute that established the court, Russia did not do anything bad. 

Russia was a signatory to the Rome statute, but withdrew in 2016, saying it did not recognise the jurisdiction of the court. 

Although Ukraine is itself not a signatory to the court in The Hague, it granted the ICC jurisdiction to investigate war crimes committed on its territory. 

Four visits by the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, over the past year have led to a ruling that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Putin bears individual criminal responsibility” for the child abductions.

What does that mean in reality?

Because Russia does not recognise the court and does not extradite its citizens, it is highly unlikely that Putin or Lvova-Belova will be surrendered to the court’s jurisdiction any time soon. 

But the issuing of the warrant remains a highly significant moment for a number of reasons. It sends a signal to senior Russian officials — military and civilian — who may be vulnerable to prosecution either now or in the future and would further limit their ability to travel internationally, including to attend international forums.

l Stewart Malcom is a professor of international law based in the United Kingdom.