An international group of lawyers, in cooperation with the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, is preparing war crimes documentation for the International Criminal Court (ICC), accusing Russia of deliberately causing world famine. This was reported by the Ukrainian portal Ukrinform, citing the London daily The Guardian.
“The purpose of the lawyers’ actions is to document cases where Russian aggressors used hunger as a weapon of war,” the group said in a statement. It was emphasized that evidence of such actions would be forwarded to the Tribunal so that it could initiate legal proceedings by filing official charges against Russian President V. Putin.
In this regard, senior lawyer at Global Rights Compliance (GRC; founded in 2013, headquartered in The Hague) Yusuf Khan explained that during Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, “the [przez Moskwę] from food weapons was carried out in three phases. First, a number of Ukrainian cities were surrounded, thus preventing the flow of food from there. Confirmed incidents include the death of twenty civilian residents of Chernihiv on March 16, 2022. The Russians then shot at the place where people were queuing for bread and other food products. In other news, Mariupol has seen food supplies suspended and humanitarian aid corridors blocked or bombed. As a result, people found themselves in conditions of artificially induced hunger and had great difficulty in escaping or even being unable to do so.
Hunger as a weapon
The second phase is the destruction by the Russians of food and drinking water supplies, as well as energy sources throughout Ukraine. Documentation from the legal group indicates that these facilities were necessary for civilian survival. It stressed that such attacks “are crimes not because of their consequences, but because they were intentional.”
Finally, the third phase consists of Russia’s attempts to prevent or restrict the export of grain and other food products from Ukraine. “We saw Russia attacking grain buildings on the Danube and demonstrating its strength in the Black Sea,” Khan said.
According to the English daily, the GRC will work with the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine in preparing full documentation of the allegations against Russia by the end of next year. The purpose of this project is to submit an application in accordance with art. 15 of the Rome Statute, which will allow third parties to transmit information about suspected war crimes to the ICC Prosecutor.
Putin’s arrest warrant
The International Criminal Court, located in The Hague, is the first permanent international court in history, established to try persons accused of committing the most serious crimes, such as genocide, crimes against humanity, war and acts of aggression committed after July 1, 2002. It was established on the basis of the Rome Statute of July 17, 1998, developed at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in the capital of Italy. The ICC started its activities on July 1, 2002. From March 11, 2021, the Court will be led by a Pole, Prof. Piotr Hofmanski.
In March this year, the ICC issued an arrest warrant against Russian President V. Putin and the country’s child rights ombudsman, Maria Lvova-Belova, accused of complicity in the illegal export of Ukrainian children to Russia. In response to these actions, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation initiated proceedings against the ICC, accusing the judges of unlawful acts in violation of the Russian Criminal Code. The wanted list developed on this basis included: President of the ICC, the aforementioned Judge P. Hofmański.
Source: Do Rzeczy
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
