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The establishment of a special court with international involvement that would try war crimes in Ukraine is possible if Kiev were to use the model of the Supreme Court against Corruption.
Other forms would conflict with the Constitution of Ukraine and it cannot be changed in time of war. This suggestion was made by the Public International Policy and Law Group, an organization based in Washington. In this case, the International Criminal Court would try the higher level cases, while the Ukrainian Supreme Court would try the middle and lower level cases.
On June 27, Russia attacked a shopping mall in Kremenchuk, central Ukraine, killing at least 20 people, all civilians.
On the same day, Russia continued its bombing of the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. The attack killed 5 people and injured 22 others, five of them children.
Russian forces have not spared residential facilities. Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine, is now almost entirely in ruins. According to local authorities, Ukraine has been facing murders, torture, disappearances, deportations and rapes since Russia launched its attack in February. All of these constitute war crimes, including the destructions that are considered the worst since the end of the Second World War.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights says that over 10,000 killings and injuries of civilians have been documented.
355 of them are children. Most of the civilian casualties, according to the announcement, are as a result of the use of explosive ammunition in residential areas.
Meanwhile, the chief prosecutor’s office of Ukraine claims to have documented at least over 20,000 cases of war crimes.
“There is a mountain of evidence that includes photographs, videos, wiretapping, interviews with witnesses, so there will be no shortage of documentation to verify cases of war crimes. However, there is a gap created when it comes to accountability”says Michael Scharf, of the Public International Law and Policy Group (PILPG) based in Washington, which these days presented a proposal for the creation of a war crimes court in Ukraine.
“Ukraine is dealing with the results of the Russian attack including murders, torture, disappearances, deportations, rapes and more”says the Ukrainian expert, Kateryna Kyrychenko of the PILPG group.
There are a multitude of countries that, in addition to Ukraine, are gathering evidence for war crimes, but bringing the perpetrators to justice is a complicated issue. The International Criminal Court is one of them, which is now cooperating with Ukrainian authorities, but experts say that this does not provide the right solution.
“Ukrainian society has great expectations from the International Criminal Court. However, the primary responsibility for investigating and prosecuting international criminals rests with local authorities.”says the Ukrainian activist, Ievgenii Iaroshenko, who monitors developments in the areas occupied by Russian forces.
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, has already visited Ukraine several times, but the capacity of this court promises little.
“The International Criminal Court has never tried more than 6 high-level people around the world, not infrequently the number of those tried has been even smaller.” said during the debate Ambassador Stephen Rap, who has been the Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
The establishment of a court with international judges is not allowed by the Constitution of Ukraine. What complicates the matter even more is that Ukraine does not allow its Constitution to be changed in times of war. The solution offered according to American and Ukrainian experts is to use the model of the Supreme Court against Corruption, established in 2019. The proposal of the Group for Politics and International Law suggests that this new court would have an initial mandate of 10 years that would it operated with local personnel, but with international support and monitoring.
“I believe that this model of a High Court for war crimes will serve the purpose of investigating war crimes quite well,” said during the debate Rasim Babanly, Head of the Department of Analytical and Legal Work of the Supreme Court of Ukraine.
The way internationals would be involved in this court without contradicting the Constitution of Ukraine will be through the establishment of the “Public Council of International Experts”. Ukraine would accept candidates proposed by international organizations with which the country cooperates in the fields of international humanitarian law, human rights and international peace.
The other important issue of such a court would be the work of financing. So far, according to the discussion, the only country that has offered financial support for the investigation of war crimes by a special court is Great Britain, which has offered over 2 million euros. This amount, according to the experts who participated in this debate, should be about 50 times higher, for it to function as a court for war crimes./VOA
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