ICC Charges Putin With War Crimes While US and Israeli Leaders Enjoy Impunity
The U.S. celebrates the charges against Putin, but pressures the ICC to refrain from prosecuting Israelis and Americans.By Marjorie Cohn ,
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On March 17, a little more than one year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Karim Khan, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), announced that the Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) had issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for the commission of war crimes in Ukraine. The PTC also issued an arrest warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, commissioner for children’s rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation, for the same war crimes.
While the U.S. celebrates the arrest warrant against Putin, it has pressured the ICC to refrain from prosecuting Israelis and Americans. There is a double standard in the ICC’s treatment of the situations in Ukraine and Palestine. This is largely due to political coercion by the United States, which isn’t even a party to the ICC’s Rome Statute.
The PTC confirmed that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that Putin and Lvova-Belova unlawfully deported and transferred “at least hundreds of” Ukrainian children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, in violation of article 8(2)(a)(vii) and article 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute.
Khan had opened an investigation into the situation in Ukraine on February 28, 2022, finding a “reasonable basis to believe that both alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed in Ukraine.” The arrest warrants were issued one year later — lightning speed for the ICC.
Contrast that with the ICC’s handling of the investigation of war crimes in Palestine.
