The Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights has published an analysis of the information known about and significance of the arrest warrants issued against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on March 17, 2023. These are the first warrants issued by the Court with respect to the situation in Ukraine, and the third time the Court has issued a warrant against a sitting Head of State.
The ICC has indicated that the arrest warrants issued on March 17, which are being kept confidential to protect victims, indicate that there are reasonable grounds to believe Putin and Lvova-Belova are responsible for the war crimes of forcible transfer and deportation of Ukrainian children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia, particularly from orphanages and care homes. It is alleged that many of these children have since been adopted by Russian families, a process facilitated by Presidential decrees issued by President Putin that expedite the process for children to acquire Russian citizenship. The ICC Prosecutor has said that these legal and policy measures “demonstrate an intention to permanently remove these children from their own country.”
While neither Russia nor Ukraine are parties to the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court, Ukraine has accepted the Court’s jurisdiction with respect to its own territory and is cooperating with its investigation.
JBI’s analysis examines the significance of the arrest warrants, recounts publicly-available reports of the alleged abduction and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children by Russian authorities since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, and describes the limitations on the ICC’s capacity to act further on the arrest warrants absent assistance from States parties to the Rome Statute. The ICC’s recent action is a significant step towards ensuring that senior Russian officials are held accountable for this particularly disturbing pattern of criminal behavior, but further action will be required to ensure that the affected children are returned to their families and that justice is done.
Read JBI’s full analysis here.
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