Ambassador, Did Prime Minister Boris Johnson just expose his plans to have Vladimir Putin tried for war crimes?
The UK's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, like Joe Biden, says his country will be issuing "massive sanctions". But what should catch the world's attention is the strong specific words he used in his statement.
War Crimes: murder, ill-treatment, the killing of hostages. plunder of public or private property. wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages.
International Court Makes War of Aggression a Crime
The act of war became a crime that the International Criminal Court can prosecute, though the court's reach is severely limited because many of the world’s mightiest nations, including the United States, do not recognize the new international law.
Jurisdiction over the “crime of aggression” was activated by the International Criminal Court, an international court in The Hague, Netherlands, that investigates and prosecutes genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and now, acts of war.
The United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court since it has not ratified the treaty that established the criminal court.
Russia nor China have ratified or signed the Rome Statute, which set up the International Criminal Court exactly 20 years ago, on July 17, 1998.
Leaders CAN be prosecuted under the law if the UN Security Council refers them to the criminal court for investigation. As permanent members of the Security Council, would Great Britain and France have the guts to allow such action?
Some might recall the last time a court had the power to prosecute the act of war-making was when German and Japanese leaders were tried in the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after World War II.
The new amendments to the Rome Statute would almost certainly make Vladimir Putin a war criminal. The amendments make war criminals of politicians and military leaders who "plan, initiate or execute an act of aggression that by its character, gravity, and scale, constitutes a manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations."
In that war, as found by the Chilcot Inquiry in 2016, the United States and subsequently Britain sought regime change in Iraq and essentially fabricated a self-defense case to overthrow Saddam Hussein, she said.
According to the amendments, Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a crime of aggression since it involves the use of an armed force by one state against another. More precisely, the statute makes it a crime to invade, attack, annex, or bomb another state. It goes further still, by making it a crime for a country to militarily block another country's ports or coasts; for a state to allow another state to attack the third state from its territory; and for a state to order an attack using armed bands of mercenaries.
Thirty-five of the 123 nations that are party to the International Criminal Court have ratified the crime-of-aggression amendments, including Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Uruguay, and Botswana. The leaders of the nations that have ratified the amendment are now open to prosecution should they start a war of aggression.
Oksana Markarova, the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S., said Saturday that her government is sending its allegations of Russian war crimes to The Hague, home of the International Criminal Court.
Markarova claims that within the past couple of days, Russian forces have levied attacks against kindergartens and orphanages, and children have been injured and killed across the country.
"We are collecting all of this, we have recorded all of this, we have preserved all of this," she said. "And we will immediately transmit this to The Hague. Responsibility for these actions is inevitable," Markarova added.
The UK's Boris Johnson called the Russian invasion of Ukraine an “act of wanton and reckless aggression." We know politicians write their scripts in a very planned and predetermined way.
War crimes for Russia or just empty threats?
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