On the 17th of March 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant on the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, on alleged war crimes committed in the current ongoing war in Ukraine. The Russian Federation not only ignored the warrant; in return, the Russian Investigative Committee opened a criminal investigation on the members of the ICC, namely the prosecutor and judges at the ICC. This tit-for-tat move serves nothing to help the victims of the war. 

Allegations of War Crimes 

Allegations of war crimes committed by both sides were already circulating even before the overt war between Moscow and Kyiv in February 2022. Earlier war crimes allegations started from the 2014 annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. Difficulties in proving that these alleged crimes have occurred, the perpetrators and inaccessibility to these crime scenes have stalled any prosecution of these cases. 

Smoking Gun

However, this all changed on the 24th of February, 2023. Putin attended a massive rally meant to whip up Russian patriotism and as a show of support for the ongoing war effort in Ukraine. Amongst the guests are Ukrainian children whom the Russians have evacuated from Mariupol. The presence of these children, or rather the validation of their identities, gave basis to the ICC to issue the warrant for the war crime.

The event focused on two Ukrainian siblings, Anna Neumenko, 15 years old girl, and her sister, Karolina Neumenko (age unknown). The ICC and the Ukrainians presented their presences and several other Ukrainian children as evidence that the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin had perpetrated genocide against the Ukrainians by forcibly deporting Ukrainian children from their homeland, contravening Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The article prohibits any Occupying Force from removing civilians from their country regardless of the reasons. Occupying forces can only move the affected civilian away from combat zones within the occupied zones of the same country and allow them to return once the situation permits.

The Lebensborn Programme

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention came into effect due to the Third Reich Nazi Germany plan known as the Lebensborrn Programme. The programme, whose patron was Heinrich Himmler, began in 1935 and ended in 1945 saw children with Aryanic features forcibly taken from their parents in the occupied countries of Yugoslavia, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Norway, Ukraine, and Poland, to be adopted by families of SS officers and men. At the war's end, the programme kidnapped or arranged the births of at least 8,000 children up to 200,000. Children that ended up exhibiting non-Aryanic found their end at concentration camps. Efforts after the war to return the children to their families were dismal. The Polish government estimated they only managed to recover less than 15% of the children. Many of the Lebensborn children grew up in Germanic families, with their ties to their countries and parents erased.

These Ukrainian children that Russia had evacuated to Russia have been given for adoption by Russian families, undergone 'Russification' and cut off their Ukrainian roots. Ironically, considering that Russia had declared the deNazification of Ukraine as a key objective in their 'Special Military Operations', taking Ukrainian children to Russia is very similar to the Lebensborn programme.

Counter-Argument

On the other hand, these children found themselves in the war zone; their homeland became a battleground for world leaders and their proxies. Many of them were orphans, though many Ukrainian families from areas that Ukraine had managed to liberate declared that Russian occupiers had tricked them into sending their children to summer camps. If Russia did not remove these children from the war zone to a safer area, these children might not have survived the war. And now that's a sobering thought.

The ICC

The International Crime Court is based in the Hague, taking precedent from the Nuremberg trials, where former Nazi leaders had to face trial for their crimes against humanity after the end of World War 2. Most recently, former Serbian warlord Radovan Karadzic, was trialled at the ICC. Interestingly, Russia was known to be an ally of Karadzic. 

The basis for the ICC comes from the Rome Statute, an international law which held world leaders accountable for crimes against humanity.

Ratification of the Rome Statute

In 2018, the Pakatan Harapan Government tried to get Malaysia to ratify the statute but backed down due to protest; it was seen as unfair as His Majesty the King would have to take responsibility for any war crimes committed by the Armed Forces as he is the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. 

Although Serbia did not ratify the Rome Statutes, it did not hinder the French military from arresting Karadzic in July 2008. Serbia had only ratified the statute in September 2008, about three months later.  

Even if ICC had issued arrest warrants, it does not mean that ratifying countries will arrest these leaders when the world leader concerned enters their country. Most recently, Hungary has declared that they will not execute the warrant if Putin enters their jurisdiction.

Major Non-Signatories

But the main drawback to the ICC is that many major countries are not signatories to the ICC. The United States, the Russian Federation, China, Iran, and India are amongst the countries that have not ratified the ICC.

Another contention that weakened any arrest warrants from the ICC is that the ICC did not issue any arrest warrants against former US President George W Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair for the 2001 Iraq war even though the casus belli for the war has been disproven and acknowledged to be false, the ICC did not issue warrants against both men for their crimes of destabilising the entire region and causing the deaths of at least half a million people. Though, with the impending arrest of Donald Trump for his involvement in the Capitol Hill riots, there are growing calls for George Bush to face similar action for misleading his country to war against Iraq.

Just a Major PR Exercise

But until then, the ICC arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin serves no value other than being a PR exercise.

Danny Liew is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!

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