Zelenskyy smiles as he speaks to members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in the French city of Strasbourg following the signing of the agreement.
Afrasyianet - Outside the framework of international legitimacy, the United States and European countries, in agreement with Ukraine, decided to move away from internationally recognized international courts and form an independent tribunal tasked with incriminating Russia and prosecuting its political and military leadership on charges of launching an attack on Ukraine.
Thirty-four member states of the Council of Europe, as well as the European Union, Australia and Costa Rica, announced joining the court, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was quick to praise the move, saying that Europe's actions reflect its vigilance to the protection of human rights on the European continent.
This coincides with the attempted assassination of Ukrainian businessman Vadim Yermolayev, who survived the explosion of an explosive device that targeted a residential building in the Principality of Monaco on June 29, with the Kyiv authorities who are hunting him accused of involvement in the crime.
The European Commission has expressed its intention to provide 10 million euros for the establishment of this judicial body, in an attempt to make this illegitimate and internationally recognized idea a success, but the West is unable to raise the budget of this court further due to its economic crisis and its lack of faith in its success, so it must promote it to bring rich countries to the list of members, in addition to expanding the base of participation on the ground of forming an undeclared alliance against Russia.
In the context of the floating of the so-called Independent Court, the participating Western countries tried to put pressure on the southern world and drag their leaders to participate in it, sometimes by enticing to invest in Ukraine after the end of the war, and at other times by threatening to stop aid to it and impose economic measures on its exports, but this did not change the position of those countries, which adhered to recognized international and international judicial and legal institutions such as the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
Western countries are working to convince the countries of the southern world and those who refuse to join the idea of the court, that the latter will also be a means to resolve other conflicts, especially in the African and Asian continents, where bilateral conflicts, without addressing the conflict in the Middle East and prosecuting Israel for its crimes committed in the Arab region for 80 years, with hundreds of massacres, tens of thousands of victims, including civilians, children, women and the elderly, and even Europe itself has provided hundreds of millions in support for the Israeli war of extermination in Gaza and Lebanon.
Since declaring its independence from the Soviet Union in July 1990, Ukraine has drawn up a document that enshrines the country's neutrality, established laws to protect the rights of its citizens, and pledged that these clauses would be legally binding, and that the country would stay away from military alliances, but by the 35th anniversary, the authorities had completely turned the page on those commitments, so they worked to join NATO, and to publish rules that threaten the countries of the region, specifically Russia, which was forced to fight a battle to thwart the operations of the threats directed at it.
European countries are trying to create a judicial entity that meets their aspirations and interests and are working to illegally annex the countries of the world to it, and by bribing them to resolve their cases away from the Security Council and the recognized judicial and human rights institutions, and they are willing to apply a different kind of justice, far from the binding laws and decisions taken by international courts.
It is worth mentioning that the European countries that are working to further polarize this court, 12 countries have not joined it in the Council of Europe. These countries are Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Malta from the European Union, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Albania from the Balkans, as well as Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia from the Caucasus and Turkey, which is an indication that the idea is not suitable.
Calls for special courts against Russia spark controversy
Western calls for the establishment of a special international tribunal to try Russia over the war in Ukraine have sparked controversy among international law experts and developing countries, as the move lacks legal foundations and exceeds the principle of the independence of the international judiciary, according to observers.
Experts in international law believe that the establishment of such courts, whether for Russia or any other country, is incompatible with existing international laws, as long as the purpose of establishing them is related to the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the West with the country against which special courts are being established.
They consider that these courts have no legal basis or clear jurisdiction, especially since their legal status is "incorrect" and their relationship with the ICC is "incomprehensible", which makes their decisions non-binding.
Moreover, observers believe that another dilemma in the establishment of such courts is related to funding, especially since they will be outside the framework of the United Nations, and they will lose their independence because of their dependence on the countries that finance their expenses, which leads to the loss of the principle of the independence of the international judiciary.
They cite past experiences in establishing special courts that failed, such as the one set up in the 1990s during the Yugoslav crisis, which failed to produce tangible results within four years of its establishment, while effectively overdoing the death of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.
The same observers assert that there are political motives behind the establishment of a new court, represented in diverting attention from the inability of the International Criminal Court to deal with Israeli war crimes against the Palestinians, or the practices of authoritarian regimes against their people, which indicates the existence of selectivity in the application of international justice.
Observers warn the countries of the South against participating in or supporting such initiatives, which may lose their neutrality in the face of the Russia-Ukraine crisis and other issues in which they have no words or phrases, and complicate the issue of their dependence and association with major countries.
Medvedev proposes the establishment of an alternative international criminal court within the BRICS
In the other twist, Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, proposed the creation of an international tribunal to replace the International Criminal Court in The Hague within the framework of the BRICS group.
In an article published in the journal "Fiqh" of the St. Petersburg State University, Medvedev wrote: "It is quite possible to work on developing the concept of establishing an international legal body at the regional level (e.g. within the framework of the BRICS) that would be an alternative to the criminal court in The Hague. "This new BRICS judiciary can affirm the commitment of member states to the principles enshrined in the UN Charter, including the principles of immunity of leaders of sovereign states from any foreign jurisdiction, and to prevent interference in the internal affairs of states, including through illegal foreign directives of opposition leaders."
Medvedev stressed that the ICC has reached the level of absurdity by issuing arrest warrants against heads of state, including President Putin.
Medvedev noted that the ICC's issuance of an arrest warrant for Putin contradicts the Rome Statute on which the ICC was founded.
Since Russia is not a party to the 1998 Rome Statute, under which the ICC was founded, the court's statute does not impose "any obligations" on Russia, and prohibits the court from ordering the arrest of an official from a non-party state, which means that the matter is legally unfounded under international law.
Medvedev stressed that President Putin, as the head of a sovereign state, enjoys absolute immunity from foreign criminal justice.
He stressed that the ICC had turned into a completely useless structure in a short period of time.
He noted that the ICC mechanism distorts international law, which is unacceptable for Russia as a sovereign state.
In March 2023, the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court, whose jurisdiction Russia does not recognize, issued an arrest warrant for Putin and Russian Children's Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova. The decision has been condemned by several countries, and the Kremlin has deemed it invalid and legally unacceptable.
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