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Zelenskyy Signs Ratification Instruments for Special Tribunal to Prosecute Russian Aggression
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed instruments of ratification for an agreement with the Council of Europe to establish a Special Tribunal to prosecute Russia for the crime of aggression against Ukraine, and urged swift parliamentary approval and coordination with international partners to implement and launch the tribunal, as was reported on July 1.
Zelenskyy instructed the government to prepare and submit to the Ukrainian Parliament the necessary legislative amendments “so that from our side everything is guaranteed at 100 percent for the full implementation of the agreement on the creation of the tribunal,” and called on lawmakers to consider the matter without delay.
He added, “I also await a swift presentation by the teams of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the President’s Office of a schedule of work with partners for the implementation of the agreement on the creation of the tribunal and the actual launch of the institution”.
The president emphasized that “this year in Russia they must feel that their responsibility for the crime of aggression is inevitable and that an international legal process has truly begun to hold Moscow to account”.
The original agreement was signed on June 25 in Strasbourg by President Zelenskyy and Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset.
The tribunal will possess full international legal personality and will base its statute on Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, supplemented by the aggression criteria set out in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3314, allowing trials—including in absentia—of senior political and military leaders responsible for acts of aggression.
Earlier, EU foreign ministers from the International Coalition for the Creation of a Special Tribunal on the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine met in Lviv and pledged to draft the tribunal’s legal framework and commit €1 billion from frozen Russian assets to finance its work.
