Vladimir Putin must face justice for his invasion of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said during a visit to The Hague, as he strengthened calls for a new war crimes tribunal to try the Russian leader.
The Ukrainian president said: “We all want to see a different Vladimir here in The Hague, the one who deserves to be sanctioned for his criminal actions here, in the capital of international law. The aggressor must feel the full power of justice. This is our historical responsibility.”
In a speech on Thursday, Zelenskiy said only one institution was capable of responding “to the original crime, the crime of aggression” and that was a tribunal. “Not some compromise that will allow politicians to say that the case is allegedly done, but a true, really true, full-fledged tribunal.”
The international criminal court, which Zelenskiy visited during his trip, has issued an arrest warrant for Putin and other senior Russian officials over the abduction of Ukrainian children. But it does not have the power to try crimes of aggression, because Russia has not ratified the ICC treaty. Zelenskiy, backed by several EU countries and the European Commission, has called for a special tribunal to try Russian political and military leaders responsible for the invasion of Ukraine.
Creating a special tribunal is fraught with political difficulties and it remains unclear how it would be created. The ICC was negotiated through the UN, but is now an independent judicial body.
Supporters of a special tribunal already know that Russia, a permanent member of the UN security council, will block any move to create a new court. The commission hopes to eventually win the backing of the UN general assembly to establish the tribunal. However, some scholars doubt that such backing would be an adequate legal basis to create a tribunal to try the crime of aggression.
During his visit to the Netherlands, Zelenskiy also met Vera Bergkamp, the speaker of the Dutch House of Representatives, and Jan Anthonie Bruijn, the Senate president. The Ukrainian leader praised the Netherlands as “one of our key allies in protecting the values of freedom”, according to a transcript on the presidential website.
Zelenskiy voiced “special gratitude” to the Dutch parliament for supporting Ukraine’s candidate status for EU membership and stressed the importance of starting accession talks by the end of the year, according to the transcript.
The Netherlands was initially sceptical about Ukraine’s quest to become an EU member state, launched just days after the Russian invasion. But once France, Germany and Italy swung behind candidate status for Ukraine last summer, Mark Rutte’s government quickly fell in behind the idea.
The European Commission is due to inform the EU’s 27 member states in October on Ukraine’s progress in carrying out reforms, including the fight against corruption. A positive report could pave the way for opening membership talks, although their duration and final outcome remain uncertain.
