A group of Russian lawyers and human rights defenders attended the Brussels Dialogue forum where they presented a declaration that touches upon creating a dedicated international tribunal on the crime of aggression. The declaration’s text is in Novaya-Europe’s possession.
The declaration stresses that planning, preparation, initiation and execution of the war of aggression constitute a crime under general international law and criminal laws of Ukraine and Russia.
“We support the initiative of Ukraine, other states and international organisations to establish a special international tribunal for the crime of aggression. This initiative is firmly based in international law and the designation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an act of aggression by the overwhelming majority of the UN member states. Such tribunal will be able to exercise jurisdiction irrespective of official position of defendants and immunities they might enjoy under international and national law.
This war became possible because previous grave crimes committed by Russia’s leadership and military on its own soil and abroad remained unpunished.
The chain of impunity that leads to [recurrent] criminality should be broken. We stand ready to help achieve accountability for the perpetrators and reparations for the victims,” reads the declaration.
The signatories include Grigor Avetisyan and Sergey Golubok, two lawyers authorised for ICC practice, Anastasia Burakova, the creator of the Kovcheg project, lawyer Grigory Vaypan, Sergey Davidis, the leader of Memorial’s Political Prisoners Support Program, lawyers Dmitry Zakhvatov and Vadim Prokhorov, director of the Free Russia Research Center in Brussels Sergey Ross, PhD in law Gleb Bogush, and others.
The declaration is available in Russian, Ukrainian, and English.
The Hague International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president Vladimir Putin on 17 March 2023. The court believes Putin is “allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation”.
