Three-Minute Legal Talks: The International Criminal Court’s Indictment of Russian President Vladimir Putin

Since Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Ukraine claims Russia has forcefully deported thousands of Ukrainian children into Russia. The International Criminal Court (ICC), a global tribunal with 123 member states, classifies these actions as war crimes and on March 17, 2023, issued a warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s arrest.

While the news of an arrest warrant being issued for a head of state is attention-grabbing, it’s unclear what type of justice will ultimately be brought against Putin as Russia does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC.

In just three minutes, Anita Ramasastry, Henry M. Jackson Professor of Law at UW Law, covers the indictment, the likelihood of an arrest and why the United States doesn’t recognize the authority of the ICC.

Read the Transcript

Anita Ramasastry: Hi, I'm Anita Ramasastry, the Henry M. Jackson Professor of Law at the University of Washington.

Three-Minute Legal Talks: What charges has the International Criminal Court, or ICC, brought against Vladimir Putin?

AR: So, in March, just a very limited charge, there's an arrest warrant out for Vladimir Putin and his Minister of Children's Affairs, focusing on the alleged deportation and transfer of 6,000 or more Ukrainian children from Ukraine into Russia, into resettlement camps for potential adoption. So, that's the sole set of allegations Putin is connected, or the arrest warrant theoretically says that he actually intentionally sort of masterminded this, or if he didn't do that, that he failed to effectively control the minister who was his subordinate.

TMLT: How likely is it that Putin will be arrested for these crimes?

AR: Well, Russia is not a party to the International Criminal Court. So, the ICC doesn't have authority or jurisdiction on Russian soil. The challenge, though, is that there are 123 other countries that are members of the court. And now that there's an arrest warrant out, they have to cooperate with the court if Putin were to travel to their countries. So, what's happened here is that basically, his world has become smaller. He can't travel to many other jurisdictions without fear of being arrested.

TMLT: What will happen next?

AR: So, I think that really what we have to do is wait and see. We haven't seen the arrest warrant. It is actually under seal. So, the ICC just issued a press release, which mentioned that Putin and the Minister for Children's Affairs that there was an arrest warrant for them. And they enumerated the specific grounds for the arrest warrant. But that's all we've seen. So, we don't know the evidentiary basis. We don't know what happened. But we also do know that there are, as I said, 40-plus countries that have asked for this investigation to go forward. So, there are prosecutors and investigators on the ground in Ukraine. And so I'm sure in the future, this is the beginning, not the end of these investigations. So, we'll see what happens.

TMLT: What is the purpose of the ICC?

AR: The purpose of the ICC is it is an international court or tribunal. It’s not there to deal with all international crimes. We have a whole host of war crimes and international crimes that happen when countries are actually at war or in conflict, or there's an internal civil war. But the idea is that most of those things should be prosecuted in national courts. And we do see that, right, that that that there is that availability, but for certain kinds of cases, really the most extreme, sort of the worst types of crimes against humanity, etc., then we tend to see that that's the role of the ICC, to deal with those most severe crimes. We've seen, for example, Charles Taylor was prosecuted in The Hague, not at the ICC but another tribunal, the former president of Liberia. The other role is that some jurisdictions are unable — maybe their court systems are very weak — or unwilling to actually prosecute crimes. And so again, for those situations, the ICC is there as sort of a court of last resort.

TMLT: Why doesn't the US recognize the authority of the ICC?

AR: So, that's a geopolitical kind of question. Just generally, the United States, I think, is reluctant. And we don't sign on to as many treaties as many other countries because there's a sense that we shouldn't cede our sovereignty to sort of international bodies. And to join something like the ICC, the Senate would have to give consent. We were a party previously, but we did withdraw. And I think if you speak to some politicians, there's a fear that the ICC might be instrumentalized, that somehow politicians that travel or military officials or others might be unfairly arrested or indicted by the ICC in a way that would really compromise kind of our role as a superpower.