The European Commission presented this Wednesday options to ensure that Russia to account for the “atrocities” and “crimes” committed in the war in Ukraine, as well as to create a new structure to manage frozen and immobilized Russian public assets, invest them and use the proceeds to rebuild the country torn apart by aggression.
(Also: Why France could suffer serious blackouts? / Analysis by Mauricio Vargas)
“Russia must pay for its horrible crimes,” said the president of the Community Executive, Ursula Von der Leyen, in a video and in a tweet, in which she assured that the European Union will help “to establish a specialized court to judge crimes of Russia” and, with its international partners, will ensure that Moscow “pays for the devastation it caused, with the frozen funds of the oligarchs and the assets of its central bank.”
Russia must pay for its horrible crimes.
The President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, urged on Tuesday to create a special court so that “every Russian murderer receives the punishment he deserves” at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
(You can read: What are the green promises that would facilitate the EU agreement with Mercosur?)
Zelensky lamented in his usual late-night speech that “the available international legal instruments are not enough for justice.”
“Even in the International Criminal Court it is still impossible to bring to justice the highest political and military leaders of Russia for the crime of aggression against our state, for the main crime. The crime that gave rise to all other crimes of this war, and not only after February 24, but also from 2014. That’s when it all started,” he said.
(Keep reading: Russia and China conduct joint air patrols in Asia-Pacific region)
international justice
The EU wants the Russians responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity and the aggression against Ukraine to be tried, although they recognize the legal difficulty in achieving this.
The Von der Leyen Executive sent this Wednesday to the EU Member States a document with different paths in this legal labyrinth, which would first go through investigate and prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity that Brussels attributes to Moscowrelying on the International Criminal Court (ICC), which does not recognize Russia.
(Also: Putin’s plan to use ‘winter as a weapon of war)
If the Prosecutor’s Office of that international court based in The Hague can “build strong cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide”, the suspects could be “handed over to the ICC after the issuance of arrest warrants”.
Moscow is unlikely to hand over any suspects and, in any event, the ICC “could not prosecute Russia’s top leaders during the term of their tenure” by enjoying immunity.
Another possibility would be to make Russia held accountable for the aforementioned crimes through investigations opened in 14 EU Member Statesespecially those that have criminal jurisdiction over crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Even more complicated to prosecute is the “crime of aggression”, which is a crime committed by the highest political and military leadership, and cannot be prosecuted by the ICC.
(Also: The uncertain future of the last nuclear treaty between the United States and Russia)
I could only judge it if there is a UN Security Council resolution or if Russia ratifies the Rome Statute without objecting to that point.
For this reason, the Commission proposes alternative ways: a special and independent international tribunal based on a multilateral treaty or a specialized hybrid court integrated into a national justice system with international judges. For both, strong UN backing would be essential.
make up the damage
The EU has frozen Russian private assets worth €18.9 billion as a consequence of the different packages of sanctions adopted for its attack on Ukraine, while there are 300,000 million dollars (about 289,000 million euros) of reserves of the Russian Central Bank immobilized between the EU countries and their G7 partners – the United States , Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom-.
European law does not allow confiscation of frozen assets unless they are linked to the commission of a crimeTherefore, Brussels has spent months exploring how to facilitate this confiscation and proposed that violations of European sanctions could be considered a crime, something that was approved this week.
(Also: Russian Parliament approves a law that prohibits LGBT + propaganda)
On this basis, the Commission plans to present a proposal for a directive on Friday to confirm this crime and set the associated penalties, which would be linked to the directive to strengthen the recovery and confiscation of funds, presented in May and pending the approval of the Twenty-seven .
This proposed giving more powers to national authorities to confiscate assets, facilitating confiscation even if there is no conviction of the owner of the assets; and expand the offenses that can lead to forfeiture, including participation in criminal organizations that traffic in weapons, people or cultural propertyamong others.
On the other hand, Brussels raises possible options to channel the revenues that could be obtained from the confiscated Russian assets to the reconstruction of Ukraine, either by transferring them to a fund or the budget of the European Union or by creating an international instrument for the management of these temporarily active.
(You can read: Implications of the European Parliament declaring Russia a promoter of terrorism)
This would allow for “stable and predictable” income for the reconstruction of Ukraine, but would require creating financial instruments “preferably at the international level”, says Brussels.
The idea would be to use this system temporarily, for example until a peace agreement is reached between Ukraine and Russia, since international law provides that the assets have to be returned to their owner, in this case Moscow, once the sanctions are lifted.
Brussels does not have an estimate of the value of the liquid assets that could be transferred to this potential fund, a calculation for which requires the collaboration of Member States, national central banks and international partners, explained community sources.
In this sense, the document of ideas of the Community Executive insists that as a first step the identification and monitoring of frozen assets must be strengthened, as well as the information that States provide on the situation in their territory.
EFE
#options #presented #judge #Russian #crimes #Ukraine