ICC issues warrant of arrest for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova over war crimes - who will enforce it?
Hello InformationWar platform! It's another beautiful day to discuss about the Russia-Ukraine war and the progress by the international community to enforce war crimes and crimes against humanity.
It should be noted that since the inception of the war in Ukraine, both governments have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, although this post will focus on ICC arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian commissioner for children's right Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova. We'll talk about war crimes committed by the Ukrainian military in another post.
The Russian President Vladimir Putin and his cabinet have over time denied alleged war crime accusations committed in Ukraine leveled against them since the February 2022 invasion. This denial doesn't really mean that the Russian military have not committed war crimes in Ukraine.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of responsibility for the war crime of illegal deportation of children from Ukraine.
In its first warrant involving Ukraine, the ICC on Friday called for Putin’s arrest on suspicion of unlawful deportation of children and unlawful transfer of people from the territory of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.
The second warrant was directed to Russia's commissioner for children's right Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova. Her's came as a result of her refusal to protect the rights of the children unlawfully deported to the Russian Federation.
The ICC said it sees reasonable grounds to believe that Putin bears individual responsibility for the crimes either by committing them directly, jointly with others and/or through others.
The crimes leveled against the Russian President Putin is that he refused to act in accordance to control the personnel carrying out the unlawful deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia territory. Also, he's failure to effectively exercise proper control over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts or allowed for their commission and who were under his effective authority and control.
Who will enforce ICC's Arrest Warrants?
One of the major loopholes in the international justice system is the problem of enforcement of injunctions issued out by the ICC. The ICC doesn't have any police to enforce it's warrant, making a mockery of the entire International justice system.
Now that a warrant of arrest has been proclaimed by the ICC will Putin appear before the court and if he refuse to appear is there any punishment for him.
Looking at past International proceedings in terms of arrest of big names in the international community, most if not all have neglected the decisions of the court, so who is responsible for carrying out the warrant of arrest.
Finally, until this is resolved and unanimously agreed by the members of the UN Security Council in collaboration with other member states, it'll remain an issue that can't be resolved.
Thanks!