WASHINGTON: The United States on Tuesday threw support behind a special international tribunal to try Russia for “aggression” against Ukraine, building momentum to prosecute the crime for the first time since the aftermath of World War II.
The European Union has already advocated for a special tribunal, which could bring fresh charges against President Vladimir Putin and would be the latest legal salvo after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him over alleged war crimes.
A State Department spokesperson said Tuesday that the United States would work with allies to set up a “special tribunal on the crime of aggression” over Russia’s February 2022 invasion of its neighbor.
“We envision such a court having significant international support — particularly from our partners in Europe — and ideally located in another country in Europe.”
Beth Van Schaack, the US ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice, said the United States wanted the court to have international personnel and resources.
“We believe an internationalized court that is rooted in Ukraine’s judicial system, but that also includes international elements, will provide the clearest path to establishing a new tribunal and maximizing our chances of achieving meaningful accountability,” she said in a speech Monday at the Catholic University of America.
“We are committed to working with Ukraine and peace-loving countries around the world to stand up, staff and resource such a tribunal in a way that will achieve comprehensive accountability for the international crimes being committed in Ukraine,” she said.
It was the first time that the United States — which has fraught relations with the International Criminal Court — has explicitly supported a special tribunal on Ukraine.
The European Union in November floated the idea of a tribunal, which was backed formally in January by a vote of the European Parliament.
The crime of aggression, then known as a crime against peace, was last prosecuted against a country in the aftermath of World War II and formed a basis of the Nuremburg and Tokyo trials of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan.
A new tribunal would be sure to infuriate Putin as Russia considers World War II victory a defining achievement, with the Soviet Union taking part in the prosecution in the trials.
The International Criminal Court since 2018 has had jurisdiction over the crime of aggression, but legal experts say it cannot prosecute Russia as the country, like the United States, is not part of the Rome statute that set up the tribunal in The Hague.
Nations not part of the court can still be referred by a vote of the UN Security Council, but Russia would be certain to exercise its veto power.
The idea of a special tribunal was first promoted shortly after the Ukraine invasion by Britain’s former prime minister Gordon Brown, alongside legal scholars.
Brown, in a March 2022 petition with experts and prominent writers, said the tribunal would be limited in scope to the crime of aggression for which it may be “easier to establish responsibility” than for individual war crimes as there was “so clearly a gross violation of the United Nations Charter.”
A tribunal would show that “we will leave no stone unturned in bringing to an end the terrible events we are now seeing, thereby ensuring that those who have unleashed such horrors are subject to personal accountability under the criminal law, so that justice can be done,” Brown’s petition said.
The International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant stems from accusations that Russia unlawfully deported Ukrainian children.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has balked on whether the United States in theory would arrest Putin. Under a law of Congress, the United States is restricted from cooperating closely with the court, seeking to avoid a precedent for prosecuting Americans.
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