- The blockade of Mariupol will go down
in history of responsibility for war crimes.
- I think he is a war criminal.
- President Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
have called Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal,
and claim that Russia's actions in Ukraine are war crimes.
At the end of February, the International Criminal Court
announced that it's investigating
possible war crimes during the war in Ukraine.
- War crimes and crimes against humanity are crimes
that are prosecuted against individuals,
so it is not a prosecution of a state
or a group or a particular army.
So if Zelenskyy or Biden call these war crimes,
and label certain people like Putin to be war criminals,
that is completely understandable
based on the evidence that exists.
That is not a judgment that has been made in a court of law.
- There are different kinds of war crimes,
and they all require thorough investigation and evidence
to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.
- Targeting civilians intentionally
during an armed conflict is a war crime.
Abusing prisoners that are captured
during an armed conflict is also a war crime.
- And similarly, it's illegal
under international humanitarian law,
the laws of war,
to direct attacks against civilian objects --
so, houses, hospitals, museums, you know,
structures that civilians use in their daily life
are supposed to be spared the damage caused by war.
- Certain rules apply during war,
and intentional violations of those rules
can be prosecuted as war crimes.
- On March 23, the US State Department announced Russia
had committed war crimes in Ukraine.
- The war crimes investigations that are being conducted
by the International Criminal Court are,
of course, a separate judicial matter,
and nobody will be convicted or punished as a war criminal
until evidence is brought and there's a trial.
- But the US is separate from the ICC,
and it does not recognize its authority.
They could, however, assist in the prosecution
before the court.
Mariner also points out the limitations
in prosecuting world leaders, or even soldiers,
with war crimes.
- You have to understand a lot
about the context of a situation,
you have to know, for example,
were there members of the Ukrainian military
or of Ukrainian paramilitary forces in those hospitals,
in those schools?
So, I mean, the videos don't speak for themselves.
- And Whiting notes that investigations
are not one-sided.
- The International Criminal Court always in--
opens investigations saying
that it will investigate any allegations
of cri-crimes committed on either side of a conflict.
So, if crimes are committed by Ukrainian forces,
those will also be investigated.
- But the investigation of war crimes can take years,
even decades,
and the prosecution can be even more complicated,
especially considering the ICC does not
have jurisdiction in Russia.
- Ukraine have given the court jurisdiction
and the alleged crimes are being committed
on the territory of Ukraine.
However, if the court were to develop sufficient evidence
to charge any Russian combatants,
soldiers, political leaders or Putin himself,
the challenge would be how to arrest them.
So, an arrest would only occur if an individual who was charged
traveled outside of Russia
to a state party that would arrest that person,
or if the government at some point changed in Russia
and the new government surrendered anybody
who was charged with war crimes or crimes against humanity
to the International Criminal Court.
- Putin's recent actions echo past military operations.
- What we're seeing in Ukraine I think is consistent
with what we previously saw in Syria,
and even before that in Chechnya --
it's a pattern of indiscriminate attacks,
a pattern of destruction of civilian objects
and killing of civilians, and I do believe that,
you know, the lack of punishment for all the crimes
that Russian forces committed is directly a causal factor
in the continuing war crimes that we're seeing in Ukraine.
- It has emboldened Putin and Russian forces
to use the same playbook,
commit the same kinds of offenses in this conflict,
and so the cost of not holding attacking forces
or militaries to account, to hold them responsible,
is that it allows the crimes to occur again in the future.