<\/p>\n
Dr Sizo Nkala <\/p>\n
On March 17 the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia\u2019s Presidential Commissioner for Children\u2019s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, for allegedly committing war crimes. <\/p>\n
The warrant claims that the Russian president was \u201callegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation\u201d. <\/p>\n
It further asserts that \u201cthere are reasonable grounds to believe that Putin bears individual criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes, (i) for having committed the acts directly, jointly with others and\/or through others (article 25(3)(a) of the Rome Statute), and (ii) for his failure to exercise control properly over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts, or allowed for their commission, and who were under his effective authority and control, pursuant to superior responsibility\u201d. <\/p>\n
Ms Lvova-Belova is accused of committing the same crimes her superior has been charged with. <\/p>\n
These charges could be based on a Yale Humanitarian Research Lab report which was funded by the US State Department. <\/p>\n
The report claimed that the Russian military had detained about 6\u00a0000 Ukrainian children in Russia-occupied territories since the beginning of the war in February 2022. <\/p>\n
It is believed that the children were sent to 43 camps across Russia where they were to be indoctrinated with Russian nationalist ideology. <\/p>\n
If true, this might have been an attempt on the part of the Russian Federation to shape the younger generation\u2019s understanding of Ukrainian identity and history which has been contested since the beginning of the war. <\/p>\n
The report also claimed that some children were taken with the consent of their parents while others may have been taken forcibly. Moreover, although children were with the understanding that they would return to their families on a specific date, some have been detained in the camps indefinitely. <\/p>\n
The Ukrainian government placed the number of children sent to Russia by the Russian forces at 14\u00a0700. Kiev also alleged that some of the children had been sexually abused.<\/p>\n
However, the decision to issue an arrest warrant on Putin and one of his aides has cast a spotlight on the integrity of the ICC itself. <\/p>\n
In its 21 years of existence, the ICC has named 52 indictees of which 48 were African while four were Russian, including Putin. <\/p>\n
All 10 of the people who were convicted by the court are from Africa. This has caused a furore in Africa, where leaders have accused the ICC of targeting only Africans while ignoring crimes committed by the western countries. <\/p>\n
The AU even passed a resolution in 2017 to support a collective withdrawal from the ICC, citing the unfair treatment Africa has received in the court. <\/p>\n
The ICC\u2019s latest arrest warrant has resurrected the debate on its controversial conduct in the last two decades, particularly its tendency to cast a blind eye on the atrocities committed by western leaders. <\/p>\n
This has led to its critics claiming that its dispensation of justice is selective. For example, the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq prosecuted for the better part of the last two decades led to an estimated 507\u00a0000 deaths including over 260\u00a0000 civilians according to the Costs of War Project report done by Brown University. <\/p>\n
The US forces have been implicated in violating international law in their conduct in these wars. Further, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been accused of gross violation of human rights for the inhumane torture of suspects under its custody at Guantanamo Bay. <\/p>\n
While the US has claimed that it has investigated its citizens accused of war crimes and human rights abuses, a 2014 US Senate report revealed that the investigations were limited and inadequate.<\/p>\n
These revelations could necessitate an investigation by the ICC. However, the US has had a frosty relationship with the court. In 2019, the US government warned that it would impose sanctions on the ICC officials who were believed to be harbouring intentions of opening an investigation of US citizens for crimes committed in Afghanistan. <\/p>\n
In 2021, the US imposed sanctions on the ICC prosecutors who opened investigations into the US ally Israel\u2019s alleged war crimes in Palestine. <\/p>\n
While the ICC should be given credit for at least showing its willingness to investigate the war crimes committed by the US and Israeli governments, there is some inconsistency in its conduct. <\/p>\n
One wonders why the court did not issue an arrest warrant for the US and Israeli leaders such as the former US President George W Bush and the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as it has done for Vladimir Putin. <\/p>\n
Former presidents such as Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya and Laurent Gbagbo of the Ivory Coast have also been indicted by the ICC before. <\/p>\n
Such inconsistency by the ICC has led to questions being raised about its credibility and legitimacy. Its failure to indict western leaders on alleged war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria will give credence to the theory that it is little more than an instrument used by the West to fight geopolitical rivals.<\/p>\n
*Dr Sizo Nkala is A Research Fellow at the University of Johannesburg\u2019s Centre for Africa-China Studies <\/p>\n
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of or Independent Media.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dr Sizo Nkala On March 17 the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia\u2019s Presidential Commissioner for Children\u2019s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, for allegedly committing war crimes. The warrant claims that the Russian president was \u201callegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[13809,13993,3062,12740,5489,4656,13994],"class_list":["post-171274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-politics","tag-credibility","tag-iccs","tag-justice","tag-legitimacy","tag-questions","tag-raises","tag-selective"],"yoast_head":"\n