A lengthy report appeared in Washington D.C.’s “Inside the Beltway” press rag, The Hill, on Wednesday, with the menacing title, “Putin in Crosshairs as Ukraine Pushes for Prosecuting Crime of Aggression.” Its subject matter was a US Institute of Peace (USIP) planning session convened in December to discuss how to bend the law, so as to prosecute Russia’s President Putin, top Russian leaders, or even Russia as a nation, for the “crime of aggression.” Published in the wake of Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba’s announcement of Ukraine’s plans to stage an “international peace conference” near the end of February, to which Russia could not be invited until it had been convicted of war crimes, it makes clear that (1) planning is underway for another big publicity stunt to follow-up President Zelensky’s U.S. visit and (2) Ukraine is, as usual, not acting alone but with international backing.
The Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project, for example, is in on the planning for some such operation.
With UK, U.S., and EU backing, prosecutions against alleged Russian war crimes are already being prepared through the International Criminal Court. But Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, told the USIP conference that Ukraine wants more: “The crime of aggression is the alpha and omega of the war. To start a criminal and unprovoked war is to open the door to thousands of crimes committed during hostilities and in the occupied territory.”
However, the ICC has no jurisdiction for taking on that crime, as neither Ukraine nor Russia ever signed the Rome Document founding the ICC; that is, they never joined. Further, in any court that does have jurisdiction, Putin as a head of state has “sovereign immunity.” So Ukraine is shopping around for possibilities for creating another venue in which to achieve the desired political result.
