EU proposes to create a specialized tribunal to try Russian war crimes – POLITICO
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday proposed setting up a specialized tribunal to prosecute Russian war crimes committed in Ukraine.
« Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought death, devastation and untold suffering », von der Leyen said in a report. « Russia must pay for its horrific crimes, including its crime of aggression against a sovereign state. »
« That is why, while continuing to support the International Criminal Court, we propose to establish a specialized court, supported by the United Nations, to investigate and prosecute Russia’s crime of aggression, » she added. .
It remains unclear what configuration the court might adopt. It could be set up as an international or hybrid court where substantive laws are based on Ukraine’s legal system while procedures follow international rules, an EU official said.
« In both cases, whether it is the ad hoc tribunal or the hybrid tribunal, the support of the UN is essential, » the official said.
Von der Leyen promised that the European Union will work with the international community and try to obtain the widest possible international support for this tribunal.
She added that Russia must pay reparations for the estimated €600 billion damage it has caused in Ukraine.
« And we have the means to make Russia pay, » von der Leyen added. The 300 billion euros in reserves of the Russian Central Bank and the 19 billion euros of Russian oligarchs’ money that the EU has frozen will be used for this purpose, she said.
However, financing Ukraine’s takeover with frozen Russian assets is likely to cause a legal headache for the EU.
In the original version of the statement, von der Leyen said that « more than 20,000 civilians and 100,000 Ukrainian military officers have been killed so far ». This sentence was later deleted. Von der Leyen was presumably referring to US estimates that 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded since the start of the war.
This article has been updated. Leonie Kijewski contributed report.
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