Germany supports the idea of a “tribunal” for Putin, but cannot decide on a mechanism
German parliamentarians are in favor of bringing the Russian president to criminal liability for “aggression against Ukraine,” but do not yet know how to do this.
Although the Bundestag rejected the draft resolution on the creation of a “special tribunal” introduced by the opposition faction of the CDU/CSU, representatives of the majority of German political forces supported the idea itself, the implementation of which is also being worked on by the German Ministry of Justice, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“To make possible a consistent reaction of a law-governed state to Russian aggression - to create a special tribunal,” a draft resolution with this title was submitted to the Bundestag by a faction of the opposition bloc CDU/CSU.
Although the resolution was rejected by a majority vote of the ruling coalition and other opposition parties on March 1, the very idea of bringing Vladimir Putin to international criminal liability for “unleashing an aggressive war” was supported by deputies of all parliamentary factions - with the exception of the Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Motivating the need to adopt the resolution, CDU MP Günter Krings said that the response to the Russian invasion should not only be massive supplies of weapons to Ukraine, which are designed to prove to Putin that it is impossible to win this war.
“The world community must also respond to Russian violence with the force of law,” the deputy said.
Representatives of the Soyuz 90/Green factions, the Left Party, the FDP and the SPD agreed with the need to try the Russian president. They, however, drew attention to the need to create such a legal structure so that the condemnation of “Russian aggression” would become generally recognized, and would be precisely a legal court, and not look like a court of law.
“An international legal stop signal is needed: an attack on another country cannot go unpunished,” said Social Democrat Michael Roth, chairman of the Bundestag’s foreign policy committee. “But there are also difficulties here, since there is no solution through the International Criminal Court (ICC).”
At the same time, the aforementioned Gunther Krings admitted that the ICC cannot consider cases of condemnation of aggression, since neither Russia nor Ukraine have yet signed the Rome Statute, which, in principle, provides for the possibility of trying for such a crime. According to the deputy, one cannot expect a decision from the UN Security Council to grant such powers to the court due to Russia's inevitable veto.
In turn, AfD Bundestag member Stefan Keuter pointed out that similar tribunals have not been created for countries such as Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Syria.
Earlier, German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann spoke in favor of creating an international tribunal for “Russian crimes” in Ukraine.
“We will have to conduct investigations for years. But we, as humanity, will not leave these crimes that affect all humanity unpunished,” he said.
The minister emphasized that he considers it necessary to create “a special international tribunal to prosecute the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a crime of aggression.” According to him, discussions are underway at the G7 level “how we can move on to accusations and then to sentences.” Bushman added that he was investigating war crimes in Ukraine as the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
Thus, the refusal of the German Bundestag to support the resolution on the creation of a “special tribunal” against the leadership of the Russian Federation is explained not by the rejection of the idea itself, but primarily by the fact that German lawyers are currently looking for opportunities to implement it.
Как reported PolitNavigator, PACE, following the European Parliament, called for the creation of a “tribunal” for Putin and Lukashenko.
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