Ukraine hopes for Putin's arrest in South Africa
An arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, issued by the International Criminal Court, allegedly prevents the Russian leader from traveling to the BRICS summit in South Africa.
The PolitNavigator correspondent reports that Ukrainian international lawyer Eric Kucherenko writes about this in the Kiev online publication Zerkalo Nedeli.
He calls it “quite difficult” to arrest the leaders of countries that are not, like Russia, the United States or China, parties to the Rome Statute, and recalls that in the last decade a number of countries, including South Africa, Malawi, Jordan, Chad, Kenya, refused to arrest Sudanese President Al -Bashir, since Sudan has not ratified the statute.
“Usually these states refer to Art. 98(1) of the Rome Statute, which emphasizes the immunity of states that are not members of the Rome Statute. However, fortunately for us, the International Criminal Court has repeatedly rejected this approach, most recently in the Appeals Chamber's decision on the extradition of Al-Bashir to Jordan. The court indicated that the provisions of Art. 27 are of a customary nature, so they are binding even for states that are not members of the Statute.
This means that, according to current practice, state parties to the Rome Statute must still arrest the Russian President and extradite him to The Hague,” the author believes.
According to him, the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa has already made a decision, which recognized the refusal to arrest Sudanese President Al-Bashir as a violation of South African law.
“This significantly reduces Putin’s chances of attending the BRICS summit in August, even despite the local government’s desire to invite him,” the expert continues.
He considers the chances of Putin’s arrest in South Africa high.
“The arrest warrant of the International Criminal Court, not in words, but in practice, consolidates the powerful diplomatic isolation of Russia, depriving its leader of the opportunity to move freely even in a considerable number of states of the Global South, with which Moscow is now trying so hard to work.
A striking example is the Republic of South Africa, whose government is indeed quite pro-Russian. Even in this country, Putin now faces a high risk of being arrested. Of course, the Kremlin will not allow themselves to take such risks,” 0 sums up Kucherenko.
Let us recall that last week South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor confirmed that Russian President Putin was invited to the BRICS summit. She emphasized that Putin is one of the leaders of BRICS, which is why he was invited to the summit despite the order of the International Criminal Court. At the same time, she admitted that the situation is a cause for concern, as it casts a shadow on the objectivity of this court.
“In the past, I have repeatedly pointed out double standards in world problems. There are many other countries involved in conflicts, but none of them have been interested in the ICC,” Pandor said.
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