The International Criminal Court. A coalition of 124 countries across the globe determined to bring justice to the worst of the worst. On March 17, 2023, it was this very body that issued an arrest warrant for the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin.
In effect, this warrant means that if President Putin were to step foot on the soil of any ICC nation, that nation would be obligated to arrest him, under the authority of the ICC, and bring him to justice to face his charge of allegedly facilitating the war crime of deportation of children.
On Monday evening, Putin landed in Mongolia, a member nation of the ICC. And, to the behest of many across the world, he walked home free last night.
But first, let’s talk about the ICC’s jurisdiction and what constitutes a war crime.
Established in 1998 with the adoption of the Rome Statute (which went into effect in 2002), the International Criminal Court was designed as a way for nations across the world to work together to prosecute the most horrible of the crimes, especially in the wake of the International Criminal Tribunal, Tokyo Trials, and Nuremberg Trials.
The ICC predominantly prosecutes four types of crimes: genocide, “crimes against humanity”, war crimes, and crimes of aggression.
The first crime, genocide, refers to to the intentional attempts of a nation or individual to — directly or indirectly — completely eradicate a certain group of people based on a specific demographic (race, religion, etc.), cause them significant mental or physical harm, or prevent the nurturing of future generations of this demographic
The second crime, crimes against humanity, is exactly what it sounds like. It encompasses any widespread or large scale attempts by an entity to harm a group of people through various means, including torture, enslavement, murder, imprisonment, deportation, rape, etc.
The third crime, war crimes, is deeply intertwined with the Geneva Convention and covers the use of children as soldiers, destruction of non-military targets (such as hospitals, schools, places of worship, etc.), the torture or murder of POWs, the list goes on.
Finally, the fourth crime over which the ICC holds jurisdiction is crimes of aggression. In essence, this refers to an action taken by a nation that directly threatens the independence or sovereignty of another nation.
It is the third of these with which Putin is being charged: war crimes. His arrest warrant centers around the deportation and illegal transportation of children from occupied areas in Ukraine to Russia.
As a member nation of the ICC, Mongolia is obligated to uphold the arrest warrant and take President Putin into custody for the charges listed in the warrant issued early last year. Yet, Mongolia has not taken any action or indicated any inclination that it would do anything of the sort.
But, this, in part, is a product of Mongolia’s circumstances.
First and foremost, Mongolia is landlocked, stuck between the frigid strength of Russia and the monolithic might of China. Furthermore, Mongolia had long relied on the Soviet Union, prior to its fall in 1991, and remained in deep debt to Russia afterwards. To exacerbate this situation, Mongolia is reliant on both Russia and China, nations which have long been allied to each other, for imports of fuel and food, respectively, and — China in particular — as recipient for its exports.
This puts Mongolia in a tricky situation. While it is true that, as a member nation of the ICC, it is obligated to respect the ICC’s jurisdiction and uphold their arrest warrants, Mongolia, as a sovereign nation, must also consider the safety and needs of its people and put them first, as every other nation is the world has, countless times, and undoubtedly will.
Arresting President Putin, which would undoubtedly have wide reaching implications, would risk Mongolia’s economic stability, not to mention the fact that it would most certainly put Mongolia directly in a military conflict with Russia, if not China, proving to be a profound detriment to the Mongolian people and likely leading to widespread destruction throughout Mongolia.
On either side, it’s a challenging decision to make. And one cannot blame the Mongolian government for prioritizing its citizens, rather than risking its economy, its alliances, its military, and — most importantly — the lives of its people to uphold a year and half old arrest warrant… which few, if any, other ICC member nations have actively sought to enforce.
Like so many of us have faced in our day to day lives, Mongolia is stuck between a rock and a hard place. And while it may seem easy to criticize and pass judgment on what is right and what is not, sitting comfortably in the safeties of our homes, the challenges faced by the Mongolian government in making these decisions are ones that cannot be envied. Only time will tell if the actions taken in Mongolia were for the best… or not.
