From left to right: president of Eurojust Ladislav Hamran, prosecutor general of Ukraine Andriy Kostin, and assistant attorney-general of the U.S. Kenneth A. Polite Jr. during a joint press conference in The Hague, Netherlands on July 3 for the opening of a center that aims to prosecute the crime of aggression against Ukraine.Peter Dejong/The Associated Press
An international centre opened Monday in The Hague to support nations already building cases against senior Russian leaders for the crime of aggression resulting from the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
The International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine is the latest step in concerted worldwide efforts to hold the Russian leadership criminally responsible for its war against Ukraine last year, triggering Europe’s deadliest conflict since the Second World War.
The centre is based at the headquarters of the European Union’s judicial co-operation agency, Eurojust. It will not issue indictments or arrest warrants for suspects. Instead, it will support investigations already under way in Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
Ukrainian authorities are reviewing more than 93,000 reports of war crimes and have filed charges against 207 suspects in domestic courts.
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said in a statement that the launch was “a clear signal that the world is united and unwavering on the path to holding the Russian regime accountable for all its crimes.”
He added that there is “unfortunately, a gaping hole in accountability for the crime of aggression in the international criminal justice architecture.”
The European Union’s executive commission is funding the initiative and agreed Monday to an initial €8.3 million euros ($11.9-million) in financial support.
High-level perpetrators could be tried at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which has already issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine.
But due to a gap in international law, there is no court that can currently prosecute the crime of aggression for the Feb. 24, 2022, invasion itself. The new International Centre will work alongside the ICC, the world’s permanent war-crimes court, and bridge that legal gap.
The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, welcomed the opening, saying there is no hope for accountability “unless evidence is preserved, unless it is collected, unless it is well understood.”
The ICC has the jurisdiction to prosecute alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Ukraine, but it does not have jurisdiction to prosecute aggression in Ukraine because Russia and Ukraine have not ratified the Rome Statute that founded the court.
Mr. Kostin said Kyiv plans to join the court’s 123 member states.
“I hope that it will be ratified sooner than later and practically,” he said, “our country is ready to do it. The only question is when the parliament will be ready to vote,” he said.
The United States also is not an ICC member state but is supporting international efforts to deliver justice in Ukraine. A newly appointed Special Prosecutor for the Crime of Aggression, Jessica Kim, will represent the US at the new centre in The Hague.
Assistant attorney-general Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. told reporters that Washington last week provided the first batch of evidence to an international database of crimes in Ukraine.
“It will not be our last,” he added. He declined to elaborate on the nature of the evidence.
Mr. Kostin said that Ukrainian prosecutors already have identified more than 600 people – in absentia – suspected of involvement in the crime of aggression and indicted 312 of them.
While countries around the world are working together to build cases, it remains unclear where they would be prosecuted. Ukraine is pushing for the establishment of an international tribunal, while others, including the United States, support a court rooted in Ukraine’s legal system but with some elements of international law.
Despite those differences, Mr. Kostin said the nations involved in the new centre are united in their efforts to deliver justice for aggression.
“If the crime of aggression would not have been committed. There would be no other 93,000 incidents of war crimes,” he said.
Ukraine wants aggression crimes to be heard at a special tribunal, an idea supported by most European Union countries, the United States and Britain, among others. The exact legal framework of the special tribunal is still under discussion, but it is expected to target around two dozen top government and military officials, according to legal experts.
With files from Reuters.