Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Putin Indicted for War Crimes
The International Criminal Court has indicted Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin for war crimes. Specifically, he is charged with illegal deportation of children. This is a nasty crime, but it is not the most severe that Mr. Putin has committed in the opinion of this journal. Starting a war of aggression, as per the Nuremberg standards, would top a list of charges that stem from that initial crime. Nevertheless, it is something. One does not expect he will ever stand trial in the Hague, but it is important to point out what he is doing.
The Associated Press stated, "Ukraine\'s human rights chief, Dmytro Lubinets, has said that based on data from the country’s National Information Bureau, 16,226 children were deported. Ukraine has managed to bring back 308 children."
The decision by the ICC to indict him and to issue a warrant for his arrest is not going to change much in the immediate term. Russia is not about to hand him over, and he is not about to travel anywhere that might enforce the warrant. Trying him in absentia is not a possibility. Besides, neither the Russian Federation nor the US are signatories to the ICC treaty.
At the same time, the decision complicates the peace process. Russia now has another issue that has to be addressed in the search for a comprehensive peace. Ukraine is unlikely to accept peace that leaves him in place, and the indictment will only harden their resolve. Meanwhile, the Russians are not about to stop the war if there is a chance Mr. Putin will face justice after the fighting stops. The war is their best leverage to ensure his freedom. A pardon would fix everything, but there is no one to issue one. The ICC does not seem to have a pardon mechanism.
So why do it? The answer lies in the protection of the global political system that goes far beyond the current war in Ukraine. Leaders must be held accountable. If they are not, others will feel free to pursue their own ends without regard to world standards and international law. And if some future dictator is tried while Mr. Putin is not, one can still argue that Al Capone deserved jail even if Meyer Lansky spent no time in prison. The indictment gives the world system credibility.
One is painfully aware that this week marks the twentieth anniversary of the attack on Iraq perpetrated by the Bush administration. That, too, was a war of aggression. Iraq had done nothing to trigger a US attack in self-defense. The weapons of mass destruction that were the causus belli never existed. It makes no difference if the attack was a mistake or whether the WMD worries were cover for a war of choice. Messrs. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld should have been indicted. Because they were not, many see the war Mr. Putin started as a legitimate use of state power. It is not.
When all is said and done, the problem is simple. There is no global authority. International relations take place in what Professor Hedley Bull dubbed, "The Anarchic Society." States are only bound by their word for as long as they are pleased to be bound by it. Morality is less important to the functioning of this society than in national or sub-national societies because enforcement is minimal and because morality varies in some ways around the world. That is why war happens with such frequency.
In the end, this indictment is less about the monster in the Kremlin and more about what the rest of the world is going to do about it. This puts the global position in the open.
© Copyright 2023 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
|
|
|
