Nicolas Cinquini

a smear campaign against Russia

Justice is my passion. The concept of an international tribunal is appealing to me. I would be happy if it proved to be relevant and effective, in short, if it did justice. Unfortunately, its arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin is expression of political and media agitation, a faux pas which brings the International Criminal Court (ICC) into disrepute, a hard blow to his own legitimacy. Russia and the US have never ratified the Rome Statute, China and India have not even signed it. Until today, the ICC has appeared as a body of European scope. I regret it, but the sinking of that arrest warrant is not likely to promote it, to extend its jurisdiction. More than ever, it will remain a provincial institution.

Delivering justice is the culmination of a long process, which is first consisting in ascertaining the reality of crimes defined by law. Law is the foundation, the investigation is providing evidence of the offense and is identifying the perpetrators. If the file is well put together, the authors are brought to the court and judged. What are the incriminating facts ?

war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation

states the ICC. The Rome statute, the law, is characterizing deportation

the perpetrator deports or forcibly transfers, without grounds permitted under international law, one or more persons to another State or location, by expulsion or other coercive acts

Who would be the victims ? Children, specifies the press release and previously its prosecutor, British lawyer Karim Kahn. Where are the evidences ? Complaints from parents or adult relatives, children themselves ? None. The press release is poor, unworthy of a judicial body. So I have searched the press, found one plaintiff, the Ukrainian State. Daria Gerasimchuk, commissioner for children within the Ukrainian presidency, claims to have identified 43 centers in Russia welcoming minors in Russia. According to Kiev, 16,221 children have been deported to Russia by the end of February, figures the UN could not verify. To ascertain the facts, the ICC is therefore relying on a complaint from a party to the conflict. The very wording of the indictment contains other defects. Deportation from occupied areas of Ukraine. Why did you make this clarification ? According to the Rome Statute, the crime of deportation is consisting in forcibly displacing people, nothing more. Russia is considering the same areas as part of its own territory. Through this useless precision, the ICC reflects itself, a little more, as the pseudo-judicial auxiliary of the Ukrainian State, when it should have had the discipline and rigor to stick to its own statute. An amateur job.

Actually, the observers have long known the real nature of the events. Since the end of May 2014, for eight years and almost ten months, the Ukrainian State is shelling civilian neighborhoods in Donbass, where no military targets are set up. That deliberate shelling of civilians is war crime and terrorism. The ICC has not regarded itself competent so far to incriminate them. In this context and since the start of its military operation, Russia has evacuated children from the shelled regions, in order to shelter them. Do we have any single relevant complaint, which would denounce the coercive nature of these evacuations. None. And for good reason, the children and their parents are considering themselves Russians. The legality of the deportees original settlement should not be a Ukrainian political claim, but the free will of the subjects, individuals whose the Ukrainian State is not the owner. The first approach is fascist. And Europe is the birthplace of fascism. Last but not the least, were the British authorities prosecuted in Nuremberg for having evacuated children to the countryside, when the Nazi air force bombed cities in 1940 ?

The technical proceeding is also a farce. Even if the crime was established -it is not- nothing would justify an arrest warrant.

There are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Putin bears individual criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes

No one asks the ICC to believe, taxpayers of the involved countries are handsomely paying its officials for a little more serious work. Since the Ukrainian authorities have provided the evidences, a respectable judicial body would start registering the testimony of the Russian authorities, without imposing coercive measure.

But what is the ICC playing at ? It does not seek justice, is engaging in politics, appears to be a party to an armed conflict. Its prosecutor is a British lawyer. Alongside the US, the UK has prevented the conclusion of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in March 2022, with the sole aim of prolonging a proxy war against Russia. His nationality would be enough to challenge that illegitimate prosecutor. As for the current President of the ICC, Piotr Józef Hofmański is… a Polish citizen, while irresponsibly, the Polish government is inciting the Western bloc to engage in a spectacular genocide, a new world war. No legal legitimacy. That arrest warrant is the expression of a declining Europe, which is clumsily seeking to be too big for its boots. Arrogance is requiring a talent and a rigor that it has lost.