In 2022, Ukraine approached its international partners with the initiative to create a new body of international criminal justice – the Special Tribunal for the Crimes of Aggression against Ukraine. At that time, the Lviv Statement was adopted by 35 countries, creating the Core Group, a coalition for the establishment of the tribunal at the Council of Europe. However, the majority of African, Asian and Latin American leaders did not support this initiative. Why this happened and how to attract new countries were discussed in the discussion “Beyond the West: Global Perspectives on the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression”, organised by the Media Initiative for Human Rights.
Anton Korynevych, Ambassador-at-Large of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and Acting Director of the Department of International Law, is the coordinator of the Core Group. During video conferences and face-to-face meetings, he moderates the work of about 100 lawyers from 40 countries, represented at the level of legal advisers to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“We have already had 14 meetings. At the last one in Strasbourg in March this year, we agreed and finalised three texts of draft constituent documents for the establishment of the Special Tribunal. The first document is a draft bilateral agreement between Ukraine and the Council of Europe on the establishment of a special tribunal. The second is the draft statute of the special tribunal, which will regulate all substantive and procedural issues of the special tribunal, which will be an annex to the bilateral agreement between Ukraine and the Council of Europe. And the third document is an extended partial agreement on the establishment of a steering committee of the assembly of states parties to the special tribunal, which will make decisions on financing and administration of the work of the special tribunal,” Anton Korynevych reported.
On 14 May, during a ministerial meeting of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, Ukraine officially submitted a letter along with three constituent draft documents calling for the joint establishment of the Special Tribunal, and now this process has been transferred from the informal Core Group platform to the Council of Europe.
“So, the special tribunal is already a reality, and the work on finalising and signing the agreement between Ukraine and the Council of Europe on the establishment of the special tribunal can be completed quite quickly. The lawyers have done their job. The draft documents are ready. They are of high quality and make it possible to create an effective body that will ensure accountability for Russia’s war against Ukraine and the crime of aggression. Now it’s time for political support for this initiative, in particular, within the Council of Europe,” said the Ambassador at Large of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.
He went on to explain how this body will differ from other tribunals.
The Special Tribunal will deal with only one crime. It will have jurisdiction only over the crime of aggression against Ukraine, as other most serious international crimes are already covered by other mechanisms, in particular, the International Criminal Court and courts of national jurisdiction.
It will be an independent international body and an independent international organisation that will have its own international legal personality and will be able to enter into private law contracts with states and other international organisations. That is, the ad hoc tribunal will not be part of any national legal or judicial system. It will be a separate international body with its own legal personality.
In addition, the Special Tribunal will use the definition of the crime of aggression as it is currently adopted under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in Article 8.8. Third. The Special Tribunal will use international law as its primary source and will refer to national law, including that of Ukraine, only when international law does not provide an answer to specific questions.
The International Renaissance Foundation has been working extensively on various advocacy issues in Africa, Latin America, Central America and Asia. Roman Romanov, Director of its Human Rights and Justice Programme, noted that today the only mechanism that can be effective is based on a regional cooperation mechanism.
“I think that in the current state of international relations, it is very difficult to expect that the UN will become a platform for resolving most conflict situations for many reasons and the disconnect that we now see in global trade, in diplomatic relations, in the instruments of justice, or even look at the situation with the International Criminal Court and their investigations. And this means that the potential and role of regional organisations is growing very much. This is not only the Council of Europe, but also the African Union, and the Organisation of American States. Why don’t we think about how to find solutions in a more homogeneous environment, but based on the legal framework that has been developed to date and which does not segment international law, but strengthens and develops it,” the expert suggested.
The discussion was also attended by Rudronil Ghosh, Senior Assistant Editor of The Times of India, Takashi Hirano, Editor of the Japanese-language version of Ukrinform, Brian Oruta, Senior Digital Reporter at The Star, a Kenyan newspaper, Raymondo Vera, Member of the Centre for European Studies at the University of Concepcion, Chile, and Kateryna Rashevska, an expert at the Regional Centre for Human Rights.
Source: UCMC
