Ukraine ratifies the statute for joining the International Criminal Court

Ukraine ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, taking a step toward membership that Kyiv says will increase chances of prosecuting war crimes by Russians and boost victims’ chances of receiving compensation.

Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, voted Wednesday to ratify the founding treaty of the ICC, which currently has 124 member states.

“We are trying to take real steps on all of the fronts of international justice to bring the Russian Federation to justice,” said Deputy Justice Minister Iryna Mudra.

“The ratification of the Rome Statute will increase the chances of victims receiving compensation for Russian war crimes,” she added.

Ukraine is not a member of the court but has accepted its jurisdiction dating back to 2013. The court’s prosecution office opened an investigation in 2022.

In 2023 the ICC issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights, over allegations of war crimes involving the forced deportation of Ukrainian children. The following year, more warrants were issued for Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Army, Gen. Valery Gerasimov.

Membership of the ICC also is a requirement for joining the European Union, which Ukraine hopes to do. It was formally accepted as a candidate in June 2022, four months after Russia began its full-scale invasion.

The document was initially signed by the Ukrainian government in 2000, but the Constitutional Court blocked ratification in 2001 and declaring it unconstitutional to authorize the ICC to rule on Ukraine’s actions.

The question of ICC membership resurfaced in 2014, after Russia illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine and occupied parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

However, many Ukrainians feared that ratification of the Rome Statute could allow the ICC to prosecute Ukrainian citizens participating in the armed conflict on Ukrainian territory.

To reflect those concerns, the legislation contains a clause that says Ukraine will not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction in cases where the crimes may have been committed by Ukrainian nationals.

Liz Evenson, International Justice Director at Human Rights Watch, welcomed the move as a “welcome advance in building a global system for accountability for the worst crimes.”

However she urged Kyiv to ratify the Rome Statute without reservations.

“Limitations in the law, however, risk shielding perpetrators from justice and fall short of the needs and hopes of victims and survivors in Ukraine who have been advocating for ICC membership for years,” Evenson said.

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