Ahead of the meeting in Berlin on Thursday 16 November on the possible establishment of a special tribunal for Russia’s crime of aggression against Ukraine, Croatian MEP Davor Stier (EPP/CD), the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly’s rapporteur on the legal and human rights aspects of the conflict, published a message on Tuesday 14 November addressed to the “core group” of 38 countries advocating the creation of such a body.
Referring to the Nuremberg tribunal and the Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the rapporteur recalls that the crime of aggression is described as a “supreme international crime” enabling the leaders of the aggressor State to be held responsible not only for war crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law committed by its armed forces, but also for the loss of human life and the destruction inflicted on the other country.
The creation of a special tribunal for the crime of aggression would make it possible to override a Russian veto in the UN Security Council and would give the ICC jurisdiction, says Davor Stier.
In this context, he advocates a tribunal “as international as possible – ideally set up by an agreement between the UN and Ukraine based on a majority vote of the UN General Assembly, or by a multilateral treaty between the ‘core group’ countries endorsed by as many international bodies as possible, including the Council of Europe, or even a strongly internationalised hybrid Ukrainian tribunal, located in The Hague and staffed by Ukrainian and international judges and prosecutors”.
As for the Council of Europe, “it could host a diplomatic conference to negotiate a multilateral treaty establishing the tribunal and make available its legal expertise and experience in negotiating international agreements, with the participation of interested non-member states”.
Once the treaty has been adopted, the Strasbourg-based organisation could become its depositary, so that no participating State would have to be chosen to do so.
It could also help to “generate synergies” with compensation mechanisms, with the new “Register of Damage” (created at the last summit of heads of State and government, held in Reykjavik last May) and with the European Court of Human Rights.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe was the first international body to call for the creation of a special tribunal on Russia’s crime of aggression against Ukraine, a proposal strongly supported by Olena Lukash, the Ukrainian minister of justice. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)