Today, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe approved an enlarged partial agreement establishing the Steering Committee for the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine. Asnoted by Maksym Vishchyk, GRC’s legal advisor and legal research coordinator, since the international accountability network is currently lacking a judicial body capable of ensuring liability for the crime of aggression committed against Ukraine, it is fundamental today for Ukraine and for accountability efforts in general to address this gap. Establishing an institution that is jurisdictionally capable of responding to this challenge is a part of a robust and holistic accountability response to Russian atrocities.
The decision was backed by 34 Council of Europe member states, the European Union, Australia and Costa Rica. This reaffirms the strong and long-standing support that states have been providing to Ukraine’s fight for accountability. As Maksym Vishchyk highlighted, the crime of aggression is a key facilitator of other international crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and potential genocide. While states are ready to support the Special Tribunal initiative right now, it is essential to maintain the same level of support over the next year, and for years and decades to come, especially as political regimes change and political priorities shift in particular states.
The tribunal will not come into operation immediately. Its operation may potentially commence next year already, but by that stage, several necessary steps need to be undertaken. They include thedevelopment of the internal policies, rules of procedure, the budgetary considerations that involve hiring a sufficient number of staff and resource allocation, etc. This is not a fast process, yet this is a steady one.
Maksym Vishchyk stressed why the tribunal matters from an international law perspective. There are historical reasons for it. The Tokyo and Nuremberg Tribunals were the only two international institutions that have ever prosecuted the crime of aggression internationally since its emergence in the 1940s, and largely by 1945 when the United Nations Charter crystallised the prohibition on the use of force. Since then, there have been multiple international bodies whose jurisdictions covered war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, but none of them has had universal jurisdiction over the crime of aggression. The International Criminal Court – despite issuing an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes in 2023 – cannot prosecute the crime of aggression against Ukraine due to a jurisdictional limitation: the ICC can only prosecute aggression when both a state allegedly committing it and an alleged victim state accepted that jurisdiction, or when the UN Security Council refers the case – which Russia, as a permanent member, can veto. The Special Tribunal is specifically designed to close that gap.
Read full interview with Maksym Vishchyk via the link.