Russia announced on Thursday that it would not take into account the decision of the new special tribunal for the crimes of aggression against Ukraine. The agreement on its creation on Wednesday in Strasbourg was signed by the Secretary General of the Council of Europe Alain Berset and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj.
“The work and decisions of this body will be invalid for us. The accession of any state will be considered to be an enemy demarch that reflects the effort not to settle, but to deepen the current crisis around Ukraine,” A spokeswoman for Russian Foreign Affairs Maria Zacharovova said at a press conference in Moscow on Thursday. TASS added that, according to Zacharovova, the “such tools of justice on order will be taken to take restrictive measures” in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation.
A special tribunal for the crimes of aggression against Ukraine is the first of its kind, which arises under the auspices of the Council of Europe – the most important organization for the protection of human rights on the European continent. Its establishment was approved by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Member States of the Council of Europe at a meeting in West Law of Lviv on 9 May this year.
The tribunal should prosecute the “crimes of aggression” during the invasion launched in Ukraine in February 2022. According to the Council of Europe, the Tribunal will have a mandate to prosecute for the crime of aggression against Ukraine and high -ranking officials, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, While filling in a gap created by jurisdiction restrictions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, which in March 2023 issued a warrant for the kidnapping of Ukrainian children.
In its statement, the Council of Europe pointed out that although ICC is entitled to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, it has no jurisdiction to prosecute “crime of aggression” – Thus, the decision to start an armed attack on another state, which is contrary to the UN Chart.
According to Berset, the new tribunal could start working next year. Berset expects that a wider agreement will be born, which will allow other countries to support the new tribunal and participate in its management. So far, there has been no concrete decision where the tribunal will be based, but Zelenskyj said that Hag would be “ideal”, writes AFP.
