MICHELLE WAKIM: A lot of kids in Ukraine have been
impacted by the war.
Some have had to leave their homes or stop school.
And now it's been discovered that Russian officials have
been moving some children from Ukraine into Russia.
Once the children were transferred and taken to Russia,
two things happened to them -
the first was that they were allocated to Russian families,
and secondly, they've been made Russian citizens.
This is really a terrible thing.
They've lost their Ukrainian identity
by becoming Russian citizens.
We don't know the exact number of kids,
but Ukraine says it could be as many as 16,000.
This is illegal.
So wouldn't it be great if there was some kind of group
that could do something about this?
Well, actually, there is, it's an organisation called
the International Criminal Court.
The ICC is an independent organisation
that was set up in 2003.
You'll find it here in The Hague, in the Netherlands.
It's a special court, because it's both global
and also its focus is on crimes
that result from war or armed conflict.
Since March 2022, the ICC has been investigating possible war crimes
committed by Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.
(AIR RAID SIREN BLARES)
And moving children is one of those crimes.
It is forbidden by international law for occupying powers
to transfer civilians from the territory they live in
to other territories.
Children enjoy special protection.
The thing about war crimes is you can only charge individuals,
not entire countries.
So, who's the individual in this case?
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president leading the invasion of Ukraine.
So it's all sorted, right?
The ICC have enough evidence to arrest Putin,
so they can just pop over to Russia and...
Well, actually, they can't,
because Russia isn't a part of the ICC.
You see, the ICC was built on a treaty called the Rome Statute,
and signing this treaty wasn't compulsory.
While there are 123 countries who did, including Australia,
some key players
like Russia, the US, and China are not part of the treaty.
They don't think it is a proper court
for the purposes of bringing charges against their citizens
or arresting their citizens and putting their citizens on trial.
Some countries say, "Well, if we have war criminals
"in our own country, we should be able to prosecute them
"and put them on trial before our own courts."
So, if a country doesn't support the ICC,
an arrest warrant doesn't really mean anything.
Russia's response is really quite simple,
and they say, "Well, we certainly don't recognise
"that any arrest warrant issued against President Putin has
"any legal validity.
"So we're just going to ignore it."
So, let's recap,
the ICC have issued an arrest warrant for Putin,
but they can't actually arrest him.
You might be wondering, what's the point of all this?
Well, now Putin can't step foot in any country that supports the ICC
without being arrested by that country's authorities.
So that rules out two thirds of the countries on earth.
This action from the ICC also means a lot symbolically,
and it sends a message that there will be consequences
for how people in Ukraine have been treated.
Well, it certainly means something, because it is true
that it may take some time before President Putin
or indeed any other Russians may appear
before an international criminal court in The Hague,
but the processes have started.
These are all very positive developments,
but we'll just have to be patient.