The decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to seek indictment of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin "may be the last nail in the coffin of the ICC’s credibility," according to Professor Alfred de Zayas, former UN independent expert on international order.
Based in the Dutch city of The Hague, the ICC on March 17 purported to charge Putin, as well as his children's rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, with "unlawful deportation of population and that of unlawful transfer of population" over reports that Ukrainian children were taken from parts of western Russia that had previously seceded from Ukraine and joined the Russian Federation. Moscow has dismissed the ICC's "warrants of arrest," with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeatedly stating that Russia is not a party to the ICC and its jurisdiction is not recognized by Moscow.
"No one from the West was ever indicted" after the establishment of the ICC in 2002, Alfred de Zayas pointed out to Sputnik.
"In 20 years it only indicted Africans and for that reason it was rightly called neo-colonial. Now it indicts Putin, revealing its flagrant Western bias. Since the entry into force of the Rome Statute there have been thousands of war crimes under the responsibility of NATO governments… War crimes have been documented in NATO wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Why has no one ever been indicted there?" the author of 10 books, including "Building a Just World Order," asked.
At this point, the professor rolled off several names that he believed deserved indictment for a plethora of war crimes.
"If the ICC indicts Putin, why not Tony Blair, George W. Bush, Barack Obama (the king of the drones), Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Joe Biden..."
The current prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Asad Ahmad Khan KC, a British lawyer specializing in international criminal law who has served in the post since 2021, has blatantly "demonstrated his bias by discontinuing investigation of war crimes by the US in Afghanistan, but continuing investigations against Taliban*," Professor Alfred de Zayas clarified.
The prolific author also deplored the fact that while in his previous publications he had advocated for the establishment of the International Criminal Court, he has now been made aware of how the ICC has been "politicized and made irrelevant."
"The ICC would only serve a purpose if it were rigorously independent, objective and professional. The weaponization of the ICC to buttress US imperialism is painful... After 20 years of largely political, not strictly legal activity, the ICC deserves to be abolished. Justice means Justice for all, not only for privileged countries," Professor de Zayas summed up.
After the International Criminal Court issued its "warrants of arrest" against President Vladimir Putin and his children's rights commissioner, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova announced on Friday that, "Decisions of the International Criminal Court have no significance for our country, including from a legal point of view... Russia is not a party to the ICC's Rome Statute and bears no obligations under it."
As for the purported "unlawful transfer" of Ukrainian children, Western officials and media, along with Kiev regime officials, have been claiming for months that Russia has been "stealing" these minors by relocating them from the conflict zone's front lines. Moscow has repeatedly explained that the civilians are threatened with regular shelling attacks by Ukrainian forces - hence the relocation.
"We do our best to keep young citizens in families, and in cases of the absence or death of parents and relatives, to transfer orphans to guardianship. We are ensuring the protection of their lives and well-being," the Russian Embassy in the US said last month.
* organization under UN sanctions for terrorism.