Russia does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. Thus, the press secretary of President Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Peskov, responded to reports that the ICC intends to initiate two criminal cases against Russia, informed Interfax.
“We do not recognize this court, we do not recognize the jurisdiction of this court. This is how we treat it,” the Kremlin spokesman said.
Peskov explained that for many years neither international judicial bodies, even those that Russia does not recognize, nor other members of the international community “had bothered to pay attention to the destruction of civilian infrastructure, murders of civilians organized by Ukrainian nationalists”. in the Donbass”.
On March 13, The New York Times (NYT), citing several former and current officials, reported that the ICC intended to open two Russian “war crimes” cases in Ukraine. According to the publication, the cases are related to Russia allegedly attacking Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and taking Ukrainian children to “re-education camps”.
The ICC plans to seek arrest warrants for several people, sources said, but their names were not released. NYT experts also noted that the likelihood of a trial is insignificant — the ICC cannot review cases in absentia, and Moscow is unlikely to extradite any defendants.
The International Criminal Court was created under the Rome Statute of 1998 and is not part of the UN and is responsible to countries that have ratified the statute. Among the countries that are not party to the statute are Russia (signed, but did not ratify), the United States (signed, but later withdrew the signature) and China (did not sign the statute) . In 2016, the President of Russia signed a decree that the country would not become a member of the ICC. The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the court “did not live up to the hopes placed in it and had not become a truly independent body of international justice”.
