“Lost Illusions, or How the International Criminal Court has become a legal nonentity”
– by Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman, Security Council of the Russian Federation, PhD in law
Abstract
A strive for justice and a desire to bring the powerful to liability for crimes against public good and humanity is the idea that has always united people. Yet not all embodiments of this idea are worth existing, the ICC being the case. Legal deficiencies of its constitutional document, the Rome Statute, in terms of its internal contradictions and incompliance of its provisions with the UN Charter, its political bias, selectiveness of its ‘justice’, unlawfulness of issuing arrest warrants for heads of sovereign states which are not parties to the Rome Statute, notwithstanding the fact that such warrants are ignored by many countries, as well as the fact that the ICC, in essence, has transformed from an international justice body into a tool of legal struggle, clearly shows its complete failure. In this respect it shall fall into the oblivion, while its judges, prosecutors and other officials who took unlawful decisions may and shall be prosecuted for crimes under the Russian criminal law. In the author’s opinion, Russian lawyers should voice their comprehensive and well-based professional criticism of the ICC decisions at all forums, present international legal position of Russia in respect of the Special Military Operation, the Ukrainian conflict and other relevant challenging issues to the global legal community, media and people in different countries. Moreover, taking into consideration deficiencies in the ICC’s activities the interested parties could consider a possibility of establishing another international criminal court, which will be spared of them. This Court’s constitution shall be based on the established rules of international law, and its jurisdiction may be extended to the crimes of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and terrorist attacks.
The complete article (in English) in PDF format can be downloaded from the publisher’s site of “Law Science”.
The following summary of the article was published by the Telegram channel of the Russian Embassy in South Africa:
🔹 The world keeps changing, and not always for the better. We have witnessed the rapid degradation of many supranational legal structures, which have fallen victim to their dependence on the will, funding and values of the so-called collective West. This is true, for instance, for the International Criminal Court (the Hague Criminal Court).
🔹 As of February 2025, 125 states are parties to the Rome Statute (in the UN there are 193 members). Despite their number, the ICC does not represent the international community of states as a whole and does not act in its name. Three out of five permanent members of the UN Security Council are not parties to it (Russia, China and the USA), along with industrialised and densely populated Asian countries (India, Pakistan, Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia), many Arab countries.
🔹 It is no coincidence that former Chair of the African Union Commission Jean Ping told journalists that the Court is a toy of declining imperial powers. Opinions spread that apparently the ICC was only interested in prosecuting Africans who confronted the Western influence, and used Africa as a laboratory for testing international criminal justice.
🔹 Yet it was in terms of the arrest warrants issued for heads of sovereign states that the ICC reached the pinnacle of nonsense and disutility, including Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in respect of the situation in Ukraine. Passing such decisions the ICC officials were well aware of the fact that they would never bring any practical result, saving propaganda consequences obviously in the interests of the same Anglo-Saxon world.
🔹 Unfortunately, at this point we need to recognise [ICC’s] total inefficiency in performing its main task – bringing to liability all those guilty of genocide, aggression, war crimes, those who escaped punishment under national law. All of them, including citizens of Western countries and NATO member states. Of course, it is doubtful that the Hague Criminal Court in its present form and role will make efforts to this end. That is why it shall sink into oblivion.
🔹It seems entirely possible to develop on the regional level (for instance, in the framework of BRICS) a concept of establishing an international legal body as an alternative to the Hague Criminal Court. This new judicial body in BRICS could reiterate the common commitment of its member states to the UN Charter principles, including the principles of immunity of heads of sovereign states from any foreign jurisdiction and non-interference into internal affairs of the states, including by way of unlawful foreign instructing of opposition leaders.