The European Union’s judicial cooperation agency, Eurojust, disclosed on Thursday, February 23, 2023 that it is setting up a new center to support efforts to gather evidence of the crime of aggression in Ukraine.
The announcement came on the eve of the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and amid international calls for accountability for war crimes in Ukraine and the prosecution of the crime of aggression by Russia’s leaders.
Pressure is mounting for the establishment of a special tribunal to try Russia’s leaders for the crime of aggression, that is, the illegal invasion of one country by another.
“It is Ukraine’s firm belief that the accountability efforts should also include the prosecution of the leadership of the Russian Federation for the crime of aggression. The impunity for this supreme international crime should never be accepted.”
Ukraine’s representative to Eurojust, Myroslava Krasnoborova
The new International Center for Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression should be operational by summer, Eurojust said in a statement.
The agency said the center will “support and enhance investigations into the crime of aggression by securing key evidence and facilitating case building at the earliest possible stage.”
It remains unclear when and where a prosecution for aggression could happen.
The International Criminal Court, which is investigating in Ukraine, does not have jurisdiction. Krasnoborova said “all options are on the table” for a possible venue.
Ukraine’s First Lady Urges U.N To Establish Aggression Tribunal
Ukraine’s First Lady, Olena Zelenska, has called on the United Nations to set up an aggression tribunal.
She called on the United Nations to establish a special tribunal to prosecute crimes of Russian aggression, stressing that “it is not only us who need that, we need that for everyone.”
“Justice for Ukraine is justice for the entire world,” Zelenska said.
In her virtual presentation, Zelenska pointed to ill-treated emaciated Ukrainian prisoners of war, and the thousands of children Russia has taken from Ukraine and the reported adoption of some of them by Russian families.
“We are fighting for human rights. We are fighting for what unites us, the right to freedom, life, not to get tortured and to live freely.”
Olena Zelenska
The wife of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressed that Ukraine’s victory in the war will mean the victory of human rights over “lawlessness, torture and destruction.”
She is not alone. The European Union’s legislature passed a non-binding resolution in January calling on the 27-nation bloc to work “in close cooperation with Ukraine to seek and build political support in the U.N. General Assembly and other international forums … for creating the special tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine.”
Amid the international efforts to ensure accountability, Ukrainian prosecutors are working on thousands of cases in their country.
Krasnoborova said Ukrainian authorities already are investigating the crime of aggression and Ukrainian prosecutors have registered more than 71,000 alleged war crimes since the war began. She said 99 cases have been sent to courts and 26 verdicts have been reached.
At a separate event in The Hague, Ukrainian human rights lawyer Oleksandra Matviichuk, who shared last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, said her organization has recorded more than 31,000 crimes and said all can be traced back to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“All these crimes became possible because of one leader’s decision — Putin and his surroundings, to initiate, to plan and to start the war of aggression. And this is a separate crime, which is called crime of aggression. And this crime has also to be punished.”
Oleksandra Matviichuk
Matviichuk also backed calls for an international tribunal to try the crime of aggression.
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