"This is the only issue on which there is no progress": The Hague discusses the creation of a tribunal for Putin
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, 123,000 war crimes cases have been registered
The intergovernmental conference "Restoring Justice for Ukraine" started in The Hague on Tuesday, 2 April. The governments of the Netherlands and Ukraine are summing up the interim results of investigations into crimes committed as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, prosecution of perpetrators and coordination of international efforts in this area.
Source. This was reported by DW.
Another goal of the conference is to make further progress in achieving the goals of President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy's "peace formula" in the field of justice. At Kyiv's request, the Netherlands is playing a leading role in this.
It is about supporting Ukraine in the investigation and prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity, which is currently being done by 24 countries.
The global debate on the creation of a special tribunal for the Russian military and political leadership is ongoing.
"This is a difficult discussion," said Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in The Hague before the conference. – "This is the only issue on which there is no concrete practical progress.
According to him, the participants of the international discussion cannot decide on the parameters of the future tribunal. The question is whether this tribunal will be international or "hybrid" – based on Ukrainian legislation with the involvement of foreign judges.
Currently, the International Centre for the Investigation of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine in The Hague continues to collect evidence, but there is still no place to file a lawsuit in this case, Kuleba said.
Zelenskyy's peace plan also includes compensation for all types of damage caused to Ukraine and Ukrainians as a result of the Russian invasion. A separate part of the conference in The Hague will be devoted to registering this damage.
In March, during his visit to Brussels, Ukraine's Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said that since the beginning of the Russian invasion, Ukraine had convicted 81 Russian war criminals. Of these, 17 were tried in Ukraine in person and received prison sentences. Most of the Russian defendants were convicted in absentia, Kostin said.
In total, according to Kyiv, about 123,000 war crimes cases have been registered since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion. The International Criminal Court in The Hague is investigating the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia, which has led to the issuance of an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin.
If you have read this article to the end, we hope that means it was useful for you.
We work to ensure that our journalistic and analytical work is of high quality, and we strive to perform it as competently as possible. This also requires financial independence. Support us for only UAH 196 per month.
Become a Mind subscriber for just USD 5 per month and support the development of independent business journalism!
You can unsubscribe at any time in your LIQPAY account or by sending us an email: [email protected]
