End Double Standard On War Crimes

Russian President Vladimir Putin, against whom International Court of Justice (ICJ) has issued arrest warrant for war crimes committed in Ukraine, surprised the world by paying a lightning visit to United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia last Wednesday. Coming as it did on the sideline of COP28 climate conference held at Abu Dhabi, the visit indicated that Putin cares less about ICC summons and is able to make his presence felt where Russia’s interests are at stake. This visit was Putin’s first to the Gulf region since the start of Russia’s invasion on Ukraine on 24 February 2022. Though he had undertaken a number of foreign trips during the first few months of the outbreak of the war, he rarely went abroad after the ICC issued the arrest warrant against him on 17 March 2023. 

Most conspicuously, he skipped visit to South Africa where he was invited to attend the 15th annual BRICS summit held on 23-24 August. Initially, there were media stories that if Putin decided to participate in the meeting, South Africa would be obliged to arrest him for reason of  its being a signatory to Rome Statute.  Eventually Putin deputed Foreign Minister Sergei Laprov as his representative to the summit. Earlier, Cyril Ramaphosa had publicly said that South Africa would not implement the ICJ order as it would “amount to declaring a war” with Russia. 

Allegation

Later, Putin also skipped G20 meeting held in New Delhi on 9-10 September 2023. He did not visit India despite the fact that India is not a signatory to Rome statute and there was no possibility of Putin’s arrest in view of the best diplomatic relation and mutual trust that exists between India and Russia. Despite increasing opposition to unequal standard followed by ICJ in defining war crimes, the western powers are pushing hard to hold Putin accountable for forcibly deporting children, unlawfully transferring populations and occupying Ukraine’s territory. But Russia has been rejecting this allegation saying that it had evacuated 6000 Ukrainian children from war zone for their safety, provided them decent shelter and would return them to their guardians when conducive environment arises.

Russia has dismissed the ICJ warrant against Putin as outrageous and unacceptable.  Kremlin’s Spokesperson Dimitry Peskov says: “Russia, like a number of other states, does not recognise the jurisdiction of this court, and therefore any of its decisions are insignificant for the Russian Federation from a legal viewpoint”. As ICJ, backed by western democracies, moves heaven and earth to bring the question of accountability of war crime to bear on Putin, international public opinion has started to point out accusing fingers to the ICJ itself for its conspicuous indifference towards more widespread, more brutal and egregiously inhuman acts of war crime in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria in the past and in the Gaza Strip at present. The question of accountability is no longer limited to Russia and Putin only.  

The ICJ is increasingly coming under fire for practicing double standard. During the ongoing Israel- Hamas war, more heinous incidents of genocide involving unprecedented coercive translocation of population, killing of innocent children and women have taken place. But the ICJ has not said what has happened in the battle field amounts to war crimes.  An article published on 6 December 2023 in Foreign Affairs Journal states; “Altogether 15,000 civilians have been killed in Israeli counter attack in Gaza Strip of which 6,000 are children and 5,000 are women”.  In addition to that there was a coercive transfer of more than 1.9 million people out of the population of 2.3 million. Isn’t it more gruesome than Russia transporting 6,000 children and keeping them in safe shelter with a declared commitment of returning them to their guardians? 

According to an Arab News report (https://arab.news/zrnr3), European Union Foreign Affairs High Representative Joseph Borrel also exposed EU’s double standard when he said that Hamas attack on Israel was a “war crime”. When asked if Israel’s bombardment on Gaza also constituted a war crime he said he was not a lawyer and that “we should give the International Court of Justice to decide that”.  In the context of increasing erosion of ICJ’s credibility as a defender of justice and peace, it is being criticized and derided as a tool in the hands of US and European Union. Recently, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim criticized its discriminatory definition of war crimes as “hypocritical” and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa made it public in last April that the ruling African National Congress Party had made a decision to pull out of the ICC. 

Symbolic message

When Putin arrived in Abu Dhabi, escorted by 4 Shukoi SU-35 fighter jets, it did not look like there was someone wanted by ICJ visiting that city. He was welcomed by UAE President Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed Al Nahayan and was offered a 21 gun salute, while a fleet of UAE air force executed a fly by trailing coloured smoke depicting Russian flag.  In Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman also accorded Putin a lavishly royal welcome. This was enough to send a symbolic message that the Gulf powers do not want to view Russia and Putin through the lenses of Western powers.

Locked into and existential battle with the West, Putin wants to forge alliance across broad spectrums of geo-political possibility. The response he has received across the world shows that he is a leading geopolitical player and it is not easy to isolate him on the theatre of international politics; harder still to excommunicate him as a war criminal. Pursuit of accountability is one of the most abiding ethics of justice dispensation. But it is the paramount responsibility of the global judicial body to see to it that extrajudicial power centres do not exert unfair influence to tilt the sacred balance of justice to one side in gross disregard for the significant burden of criminal culpability on the other side. 

(Dr. Bharadwaj is former ambassador and former Chairperson of Gorkhapatra Corporation.)