Unveiling the necessity for a new international criminal court (ICC) . A personal perspective amidst 21st century international law Crimes in Ukraine linked to Russian Federation aggression
Marcin Berent
Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń , Polandhttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-7287-2148
Abstract
On 24 February 2022, troops of the Russian Federation crossed the borders of Ukraine, a sovereign and independent European country. The war that followed the coronavirus pandemic shook the foundations of the entire world, which suddenly ceased to exist in the way modern societies had known it by then. Russian aggression brought not only full-scale war, but also atrocities unknown since 1945 involving mass crimes under international law, including the crime of genocide – or at least a reasonable suspicion of its commitment. The spectre of a global conflict hung over the world again and the civilised part of it was faced with the challenge to account for the immeasurable harm and misery caused by officials of the Russian Federation and its allied forces. The response to the crimes committed in Ukraine was the issuing by the International Criminal Court in The Hague of an arrest warrant against those indisputably responsible for them. The Court took decisive action, but it is limited by the legal framework established for its competence. That framework; however, appears to be insufficient to prosecute those responsible for the war in Europe. For that reason, it is necessary to establish an international criminal court to try the crimes under international law committed in Ukraine, which would have the power to prosecute the crimes inspired by the Kremlin and the representatives of Vladimir Putin’s regime more effectively. It is those crimes and the need to eradicate and counteract them more efficiently that this study is devoted to. Therefore, the subject of the research is the analysis of the current state of international criminal justice to determine its effectiveness and usefulness for judging the crimes committed in Ukraine and to present basic concepts, including the concept of genocide, as preliminary considerations. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate the need to establish a new criminal court. To achieve the research goal, the historical-legal method with elements of the historical-philosophical method, the method of logical and conceptual analysis of legal institutions (including functional exploration), the axiological method (including teleological exploration) and the systemic method were used. Due to the nature of the work, the dogmatic (formal-legal) method was applied to a limited extent, but sufficiently enough to achieve the research goals.
Keywords:
war, Russia, Ukraine, crime under international law, genocide, international criminal court/ICCReferences
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Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7287-2148
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