Ukraine opens international centre to investigate russian aggression
Until new tribunal is established, CIPA will operate under supervision of Eurojust
Ukraine has taken a new step towards establishing an international judicial institution. On Sunday, 5 March, the International Centre for the Prosecution of Crimes of Aggression (CIPA) was established. The announcement was made during the United for Justice conference, which took place from 3 to 5 March in Lviv.
Source: RFI
The conference was attended by Ukrainian, European and American ministers of justice and prosecutors.
The CIPA, which is a temporary prosecutor's office, is the first step towards the creation of a special tribunal that could try those responsible for russian aggression against Ukraine in the future.
The draft UN resolution has been under discussion since mid-November 2022. According to many lawyers, this is a necessary step to create a legitimate international tribunal that will not recognise the immunity of such political and military leaders as russian President vladimir putin and russian Defence Minister sergei shoigu.
The International Criminal Court (ICC), which began investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine a year ago, has no jurisdiction to consider the crime of aggression, as neither Kyiv nor moscow has ratified its treaty.
The idea of a special tribunal to try russia's aggression was put forward by French-British lawyer Philippe Sands in the Financial Times on 28 February 2022, four days after the russian invasion began. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky supported this idea after it became known about the crimes committed by the russian military in Bucha in April 2022.
The Ukrainians are trying to convince their allies to support the idea of a special international tribunal. But France, the United States, and the United Kingdom oppose it because it could pave the way for trials of the same nature in other cases of aggression, such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
These countries also reject the idea of entrusting international judges with the task of determining the law for future military conflicts. It was they, along with russia, who tried to limit the ICC's prerogatives on the crime of aggression long before the conflict in Ukraine, Le Monde's special correspondent in The Hague noted.
Until the new tribunal is established, CIPA will operate under the supervision of Eurojust, the EU Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation.
At the end of March 2022, a joint investigation team was set up within its framework to investigate crimes committed on the territory of Ukraine. It currently includes seven countries: Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia, and Romania. Investigators from these countries can combine evidence of war crimes into one case file.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, who came to Ukraine for the conference, signed a memorandum that allows U.S. judicial cooperation with this joint team.
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