(by Lorenzo Midili and Giuseppe Paccione) On the judicial level, something is moving around the figure of the one who for over a year has set in motion the aggressive war machine against a sovereign and independent country; it's about the Russian president Vladimir Putin, on which an international arrest warrant is pending. This mandate was also issued to the commissioner for the rights of the child, Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova. Warrants issued by judges of the International Criminal Judiciary confirm reasonable grounds to believe that the two named individuals are held criminally responsible for committing war crimes with the deportation or transfer or illegal detention of Ukrainian children on occupied Ukrainian territory by Russian military troops, in accordance with the Statute of the International Criminal Court.
We could argue that the Court was able to strike and prosecute directly Putin accusing him of war crimes. It is known that Putin cannot be prosecuted by national courts for the mere reason that international law guarantees him immunity as head of state. However, it should be remembered that the j'accuse of judges of the International Criminal Court falls within its mandate to hold major international crimes perpetrators before the international community.
Of course, we cannot expect Putin to be translated into the dock in any short time. However, it should be noted that the States which have ratified the International Criminal Statute, de jure, are obliged to arrest him should he enter their territories.
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The currently unfeasible but symbolic aspect of an international arrest warrant, issued by the member judges of the second Preliminary Chamber of the Court it makes profound sense for the Ukrainian people both to obtain full recognition of the damage suffered by Russia and to see Putin's leadership delegitimized before international society. The allegation also extends beyond Ukraine to diplomats, Russian dissidents, military personnel and Russian families involved in the publicly documented child transfer operation.
The arrest warrant for the Kremlin head also changes the playing field for all state actors who are busy finding a political solution to a ceasefire between the two contenders. Certainly, there will be a careful discussion around the question of whether the UN political body should use its authority, in compliance with Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations on action in respect of threat to the peace, breach of the peace and acts of aggression, to request the members of the International Criminal Court to freeze their investigations into Putin in order to protect the balance of peacekeeping and international security. The Rome Statute allows the Security Council to suspend all prosecutions for a period of twelve months; at the end. the UN political body can always renew the suspension for a period of one year, but could continue to carry out this renewal indefinitely.
Now, Moscow could for a plausible reason pursue such a solution; in exchange for supporting the Moscow authorities' position on the suspension, other member states of the United Nations Security Council could gain leverage to push Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukrainian territory or at least obtain concessions which, otherwise would not be feasible. This, however, could clash with the opposition both from Ukraine and from non-governmental organizations fighting to defend the sphere of human rights which, of course, would express total opposition to such an effort, in which some states could consider it a commitment, on a moral level , unacceptable to trade justice for peace. It would seem possible that the Kremlin, which has never recognized the ICC, would agree to open the door to such a solution, thereby giving the international criminal justice body undue recognition.
Although having a minor tone, it is considered essential that the arrest warrant can be sent to Russian public opinion, thus favoring the opposition of Putin's regime, so as to reinvigorate what will happen after the eclipse of Putin. This mandate - which refers to the issue of deportations, transfers, illegal detentions from the occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia of Ukrainian children, recalling that the transfer, direct or indirect, by the occupying power of parts of its civilian population is considered illicit – provides a narrative to the efforts of the two parties on whom this mandate is pending to present the transfer program part of the humanitarian operation to the Russian public. The President of the International Criminal Court has made it clear that public awareness of the warrants can contribute to the prevention of further commission of crimes.
The boulder of war crimes charges against Putin e Lviv-Belova it could lead Russian families, who have been entrusted with Ukrainian children, to deviate from following the Kremlin's planned program for fostering or adopting children deported from Ukraine.