Russian President, Vladimir Putin is scheduled to visit Mongolia next week, despite the country being a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which last year issued a warrant for his arrest.
The visit, slated for September 3, 2024, will be Putin’s first trip to an ICC member state since the warrant was issued in March 2023 over suspected war crimes in Ukraine.
The court also indicted Putin’s children’s rights envoy, Maria Lvova-Belova, on the same charges, and later issued arrest warrants for former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov on the charges of war crimes and the crime against humanity of inhumane acts.
The visit is taking place on the invitation of Mongolian President, Ukhnaa Khurelsukh.
The Kremlin disclosed that Putin will hold talks with Khurelsukh and other top Mongolian officials, participating in “ceremonial events dedicated to the 85th anniversary of the joint victory of the Soviet and Mongolian armed forces over the Japanese militarists on the Khalkhin Gol River.”
Putin has avoided travel to ICC member states ever since the warrant, which he deems “null and void”, was issued.
Last year, he skipped a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, in Johannesburg.
Mongolia signed the Rome Statute in 2000 and ratified it in 2002.
Under the court’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, ICC members are bound to detain suspects for whom an arrest warrant has been issued by the court, if they set foot on their soil.
As such, Mongolia is required to detain Putin if he lands there.
However, the court doesn’t have any enforcement mechanism.
In a famous case, then Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir wasn’t arrested in 2015 when he visited South Africa, which is a member of the court, sparking angry condemnation by rights activists and the country’s main opposition party.
Kremlin Not Worried About Arrest Warrant
The Kremlin said that it was not worried that Mongolia could arrest President Vladimir Putin during his visit next week to the member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has issued a warrant for the Russian leader.
“There are no worries, we have a great dialogue with our friends from Mongolia,” Kremlin Spokesman, Dmitry Peskov said.
Asked if Moscow had discussed the arrest warrant with Ulaanbaatar ahead of Putin’s trip, he replied, “All aspects of the visit were carefully prepared.”
Meanwhile, Talita Dias, a research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict, opined, “Mongolia is never going to arrest him[Putin], of course.”
Dias said that although Mongolia is obligated to arrest Putin, there will probably be no major consequences if it doesn’t.
“It’s very difficult to operate in this space of states without enforcement power,” Dias said.
Citing the case where South Africa failed to arrest Sudan’s then-president, Omar al-Bashir, in 2015, Dias told a news agency that since Sudan was a non-member state, the UN Security Council got involved, which escalated the situation.
In Putin’s case, it’s also the first time the court issued a warrant against the leader of one of the UN Security Council’s five permanent members.
Dias said that with Russia a permanent Security Council member, it’s unlikely there will be far-reaching consequences for either country in the event of a failure to comply with the warrant.
“There will be legal proceedings, probably at the ICC,” she said, adding, “There would be a finding that Mongolia has breached the Rome Statute. Maybe some countries will sanction Mongolia for that, and then that’s it.”
Nonetheless, she told the news agency, “I’m curious to see what will happen.”
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