PACE: Special tribunal should prosecute Russian and Belarusian leaders

This is stated in the resolution entitled “Legal and human rights aspects of the Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine” adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe with 100 votes for and 1 abstention, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

In its resolution, PACE reiterates that the Russian Federation’s armed attack and large-scale invasion of Ukraine launched on 24 February 2022 constitute an “aggression” under the terms of Resolution 3314 of the United Nations General Assembly and are clearly in breach of the Charter of the United Nations and the Statute of the Council of Europe. Moreover, the attempted annexation of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia, following the illegal so-called referendums organised by the Russian Federation in these regions in September 2022, is a further escalation of the aggression against Ukraine.

“The Russian Federation will be considered as continuing its aggression as long as the sovereignty, territorial integrity, unity and political independence of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders will be fully re-established. The Assembly recalls that the ongoing aggression is a continuation of the aggression started on 20 February 2014, which included the invasion, occupation and illegal annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation,” reads the resolution.

PACE also notes that “Belarus has participated in the Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine, as it has allowed its territory to be used by the Russian Federation for perpetrating acts of aggression against Ukraine. Its role and complicity should be condemned by the international community and its leaders should be held to account.”

Pointing out that the unprovoked acts of aggression committed by the Russian Federation and Belarus constitute manifest violations of the Charter of the United

Nations and lack any plausible legal justification, PACE underscores that “these acts therefore meet the definition of the crime of aggression as set out in Article 8 bis of the Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and under customary international law.”

“The Russian and Belarusian political and military leaders who planned, prepared, initiated or executed these acts, and who were in a position to control or direct the political or military action of the State, should be identified and prosecuted. Without their decision to wage this war of aggression against Ukraine, the atrocities that flow from it (war crimes, crimes against humanity and possible genocide), as well as all the destruction, death and damage resulting from the war, including from lawful acts of war, would not have occurred,” reads the resolution.

Noting that the ICC does not have at present jurisdiction over the crime of aggression

committed against Ukraine and that there is no other international criminal tribunal competent to prosecute and punish the crime of aggression committed against

Ukraine, PACE reiterates its call on the Council of Europe member States and observer States to “set up a special international criminal tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine, which should be endorsed and supported by as many States and international organisations as possible, and in particular by the United Nations General Assembly.”

As reported, PACE members called on the leaders of the Council of Europe member states at the summit in May to lead the initiative to create a special international criminal tribunal for the crime of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, as well as to support the creation of an international compensation mechanism for damages caused during the aggression.

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