By: Chile Eboe-Osuji

Accountability

In a development that some have described as unusually bold—but which some (myself include) saw only as a matter of time—the judges of the International Criminal Court have issued an arrest warrant against Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and one of his ministers for the war crime of deportation or unlawful transfer of people (notably children) from Ukraine to Russia.

In a sense, that particular development has overtaken the debate about its own boldness or inevitability. It is reasonable, of course, for the average person to ask whether Mr Putin would ever be brought to trial at the ICC given the obvious stature of power that he enjoys in the international community. That, of course, remains to be seen.

The eventuality of his prosecution can, however, reasonably actualise a winning wager. This is because no head of state or head of government has ever escaped eventual prosecution—once indicted—in the modern era of international law. That was the fate of Colonel Théoneste Bagosora (who was the effective head of state of Rwanda during the Rwandan Genocide following the death of President Juvenal Habyarimana in a plane crash), Mr Jean Kambanda (the Prime Minister of Rwanda during the genocide), Mr Slobodan Milosević (the President of Serbia), and Mr Charles Taylor (the President of Libera). They were all prosecuted before an international criminal tribunal (Milosević died while on trial). Towards the end of World War II, the Allies had Adolf Hitler (the German Fuhrer) in their sight for criminal prosecution. He escaped that fate by the simple strategy of committing suicide. But his successor as Germany’s head of state, Grand Admiral Carl Dönitz, was prosecuted before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, in the same way that Colonel Bagosora was later tried before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Read more.