The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin this Friday, March 17, 2023, charging him with war crimes. But what is the Russian president really risking?
[Updated March 17 at 4:59 p.m.] More than a year after the start of the war in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is the subject of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court. The court finds that the President of Russia “would be responsible for the war crime of illegal deportation of people and illegal transfer of people from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia. The crimes were allegedly committed on occupied Ukrainian territory at least from February 24, 2022.” The ICC says in a statement that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Putin is personally responsible for the above crimes.” But what does the master of the Kremlin really risk?
As Canadian lawyer David Vachon-Roseberry explains, the International Criminal Court does not have a police force. “The ICC must rely on states to arrest and surrender the accused. Under states’ obligation to cooperate with the ICC, it is therefore their responsibility to ‘execute the arrest warrant,’ he explains in an article. However, this is linked to the Rome Statute, of which 123 countries are members. Russia signed the treaty but never ratified it. The authorities of the country will be asked for collaboration but nothing obliges them to respond to the requests of the ICC. The latter cannot intervene directly in Russia to challenge Vladimir Putin. “State criminal sovereignty is the sovereign right of States. Violations of this right are rarely and difficult to negotiate and are unfortunately, to date, limited only to the goodwill of States”, adds the lawyer.
The International Criminal Court itself recognizes that “many difficulties” in its action. “One of them is the fact that under the system of international criminal justice established by the Rome Statute, the Court does not have its own enforcement mechanism and it is not uncommon for States do not respond to requests to execute arrest warrants.” She adds that “arrest operations are subject to requests for arrest and surrender which are addressed to the States on whose territory the suspects may be found.” Concretely, if Vladimir Putin were to go to France, he could be arrested. Indeed, France is part of the Rome Statute and, as such, “has an obligation to cooperate fully with the ICC and to provide in national legislation for procedures allowing the execution of all requests for cooperation addressed by the Court. .” On the other hand, if Vladimir Putin goes to a country which is not a member of the Rome Statute, nothing compels his host to arrest him and hand him over to the ICC.
