By Galina Korol | 2024-06-19

KYIV -- Ukraine is on the threshold of ratifying the Rome Statute and joining the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Joining the ICC would facilitate holding Russia accountable for war crimes that it is accused of committing in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Iryna Mudra, Ukraine's deputy minister of justice, told the Ukrainian news outlet Babel that she planned to seriously take up Ukraine's ratification of the Rome Statute soon.

"Our delegation recently visited the [ICC]. There, in the secretariat, we were made to understand that if Ukraine ratified the Rome Statute, there would be great chances to appoint a judge from Ukraine in 2026–2027," Mudra said in an interview with Babel that was posted online on June 3.

The Rome Statute is the main document governing the International Criminal Court.

As of last November, 137 states had signed the Rome Statute -- including Ukraine on January 20, 2000 -- but only 124 states had ratified it.

Significance of Rome Statute

Once a country ratifies it, it becomes a full-fledged member of the ICC and may participate in the court's work, including choosing judges and approving budgets.

Ukraine needs the benefits of joining the ICC now, Arie Mora of Kyiv, an analyst at the Ukrainian Legal Advisory Group, told Kontur.

The ICC is investigating suspected Russian atrocities in Ukraine now, but Ukraine has no say in the scale or budgeting of the probe, he noted.

Ukraine as an ICC member-state "would then have more opportunities to influence the agenda ... in terms, say, of making sure that the investigation in Ukraine remains a priority," he said.

In addition, because it failed to move on ratification, Ukraine never aligned its laws with the statute, he added.

"Now, we may not investigate crimes against humanity," he said. "Also, Ukraine's criminal code has no principle of command responsibility. That means that it's harder for Ukrainian investigators, prosecutors and judges to investigate ... crimes committed in wartime," Mora said.

Yevhen Zakharov, a member of the management board of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union and director of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, agreed on the limitations of Ukrainian law.

"Besides genocide, international criminal acts are either completely absent from Ukrainian criminal law or they aren't defined very clearly, and that hinders investigation," Zakharov told Kontur.

Ukrainian rights activists have spent years urging the government to ratify the Rome Statute. The country's Constitutional Court even met in 2001 to discuss the document, Eduard Bagirov of Kyiv, director of the International League for the Protection of the Rights of Citizens of Ukraine, told Kontur.

However, resistance from various sources has stalled ratification.

"The court decreed that the Rome Statute doesn't conform to the Ukrainian constitution on two grounds," Bagirov said.

Disinformation campaign

On top of that, Ukrainian soldiers purportedly have objected to ratification too, misled by Russian disinformation.

Mora attributed their misgivings to "a well-planned Russian psychological operation."

Russian disinformation has convinced part of the Ukrainian public that ratification of the Rome Statute will lead to a wave of rampant (and unfounded) ICC prosecutions of Ukrainian soldiers, said Mudra the deputy minister.

This claim that the ICC will behave like an arm of Russia is bogus, say rights activists.

In fact, back in 2013, Ukraine recognized the ICC's jurisdiction, as Mudra noted to Babel.

The ICC has had power to indict Ukrainians ever since and has not misused it, argued Mora.

"Just because Russia considers something a crime doesn't mean that the International Criminal Court looks only at what Russia thinks -- instead, it extensively examines and investigates the facts shared with it," said Mora.

Next steps

Ratifying the Rome Statute is not just the goal of certain individuals but rather Ukraine's obligation as recognized in the European Union Association Agreement, which Ukraine ratified on September 16, 2014, rights activists say.

It is imperative for "the authorities ... to dispel any reservations or manipulated arguments that Russia or someone else may have planted in people's minds," Mora said.

Therefore, if it is demanding the world's support for investigating and prosecuting criminals, Ukraine must first and foremost become part of the civilized world by ratifying the Rome Statute, say observers.