US European Command's Joint Assessment team and officials from the Georgian government touring Gori homes to assess damage find this Russian missile booster largely intact, August, 2008. Wikicommons\/ US Navy\/Lt.Jim Hoeft. Some rights reserved.On
\n27 January the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague made a milestone decision for international
\njustice when it decided to authorize Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda\u2019s request to
\nopen an investigation into alleged crimes committed during the 2008 war
\nbetween Russia and Georgia.
\nThe question now is how to support the Court in its attempt to bring accountability to the Caucasus.<\/i><\/p>\n
In
\nAugust 2008 Georgian forces launched a military attack on the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Russia
\nintervened on behalf of the separatist authorities and entered Georgian
\nterritory with sizeable forces. Large-scale military operations only lasted
\na few days, but attacks
\non the civilian population continued after the cease-fire agreement was signed. While Russia recognized
\nSouth Ossetia as an independent
\nstate, almost all other states still consider the region part of Georgia.<\/p>\n
Since
\nGeorgia has ratified the Rome Statute, the Court has jurisdiction over crimes on Georgian
\nterritory under certain conditions. The decision of the Pre-Trial Chamber
\nof the Court agrees with
\nthe Prosecutor in that there is a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity
\nwere committed. The Court refers to cases of deliberate killing and the
\nforcible displacement of thousands of ethnic Georgians. In a separate,
\nconcurring opinion, one of the Court judges highlighted the death and
\ndestruction resulting from indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets.<\/p>\n
The
\ndecision represents an indictment of Russian and Georgian justice authorities. One of the conditions for an
\nauthorization is that domestic justice organs have been unable or
\nunwilling to investigate crimes. The Court cites \u201ca situation of inactivity\u201d
\non the part of Georgian
\nauthorities, and rejects Russia\u2019s position that South Ossetia is responsible for investigating, as it is
\n\u201cnot \u2026 a recognized state\u201d.<\/p>\n
The
\nCourt\u2019s decision suggests that there has been a congruence of interest between Russia and Georgia in doing
\nnothing. Both sides are probably responsible for crimes, although forces
\nunder Russian control are implicated in the most serious crimes. The
\nCourt policy is to investigate
\nsenior commanders rather than low-ranking soldiers.<\/p>\n
Military
\nand political leaders could potentially be charged with war crimes, including the former
\nCommander-in-Chiefs, Georgia\u2019s Mikheil Saakashvili (currently Governor of Odessa in
\nUkraine) and President Vladimir Putin, portrayed as the de facto leader of
\nthe Russian campaign
\nby state media.<\/p>\n
This
\nis the Court\u2019s tenth investigation, but only the third that has been opened at the request of the Office of
\nthe Prosecutor. The other investigations have been opened in response to
\nrequests from the UN Security
\nCouncil or state parties to the Court. It is also the first investigation to take place outside of
\nAfrica. As such, it is a test case with bearing on other situations that the ICC
\nhas under preliminary
\nexamination, such as Afghanistan, Ukraine and the armed conflict in Gaza in 2014.<\/p>\n
It
\ntook an African prosecutor to bring the Court to Europe, and by coming here it is entering unmapped legal
\nterritory and opening up a new frontier for international justice. By claiming
\njurisdiction over Russian
\nforces that may have committed crimes in Georgia, the Court is implicitly challenging a major military power
\nand UN Security Council member. Like Israel and the US, Russia has not
\nratified the Rome Statute
\nand is therefore not a state party to the Court.<\/p>\n
The
\ninvestigation will be the Court\u2019s biggest challenge in terms of state cooperation to date and the first
\nsignals from the respective governments are mixed. While Georgia so far has
\nsaid it is ready to cooperate,
\nthe Russian government has expressed \u201cdisappointment\u201d that the Prosecutor has \u201cstarted an investigation
\naimed against the victims of the attack\u201d, namely the South Ossetian civilians
\nand a Russian peacekeeping
\ncontingent.<\/p>\n
\u201cRussia
\nstood at the origins of the ICC\u2019s founding, voted for its establishment and has always cooperated with
\nthe agency,\u201d said the Foreign Ministry, adding that \u201cRussia hoped that
\nthe ICC (would) become
\nan important factor in consolidating the rule of law and stability in international relations.\u201d
\nHowever, after the ICC decision to authorize an investigation, \u201cthe Russian
\nFederation will be forced to fundamentally review its attitude towards the
\nICC.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russia
\nis right to call on the Prosecutor to investigate Georgian attacks on South Ossetia civilian targets.
\nHowever, there is nothing in the decision of the ICC that precludes an
\nefficient investigation of these allegations. Hopefully, Russia will
\ntherefore provide access so that the Prosecutor can \u201ctalk with South
\nOssetia\u2019s representatives, civilians, who can show their photo albums with
\npictures of the loved ones they had lost,\u201d as the Russian Foreign
\nMinistry recommended in its statement.<\/p>\n
The
\ndissolution of the Soviet Union resulted in a number of armed conflicts. These wars have been characterized
\nby grave violations of international law, such as mass killings of
\nnon-combatants and the use of torture. Another common denominator is lack of
\naccountability. No one
\nwas punished for crimes. Impunity can be seen as a driving force behind the conflicts. When there are no
\nconsequences except political dividends, why not go to war? The threshold for
\narmed conflict remains dangerously low in the post-Soviet region, as the
\nwar in Ukraine illustrates.\n<\/p>\n
While
\nthe crimes committed in Georgia are few compared to the horrors of Chechnya (or the carnage in Syria), the
\ninvestigation could help change the climate of impunity. It may also have an
\nimpact further afield.
\nIsrael is following the developments closely. One can view Israel\u2019s many criminal investigations and the
\nupcoming state comptroller\u2019s
\nreport on the Gaza armed conflict as responses to the possibility of an ICC investigation.<\/p>\n
Whatever
\nthe final outcome of the investigation, the Court\u2019s decision represents an implicit recognition of the
\n6335 victims from Georgia and South Ossetia that have contacted the court
\nwith claims. Their hope
\nfor justice remains very much alive. The decision also represents a victory for a number of Georgian, Russian
\nand international human rights groups that documented crimes in 2008 and
\ncalled for accountability.
\nBoth the request of Ms. Bensouda and the decision of the Pre-Trial Chamber refer to documentation provided
\nby civil society.<\/p>\n
Russia
\nhas a troubled history of cooperating with foreign and international justice authorities and
\nrecently passed a law that allows it to ignore decisions by the European Court
\nof Human Rights. It
\nwill not be easy to complete the task the ICC has taken on, but not to try would have been a victory for
\nimpunity. Whether the investigation will succeed depends to a large
\nextent on the support of the international community, not least the EU and
\nthe United States. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US European Command's Joint Assessment team and officials from the Georgian government touring Gori homes to assess damage find this Russian missile booster largely intact, August, 2008. Wikicommons\/ US Navy\/Lt.Jim Hoeft. Some rights reserved.On 27 January the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague made a milestone decision for international justice when it decided to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}