The International Criminal Court’s investigation in Ukraine

Abstract

Less than a week after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that it was opening an investigation into whether war crimes had been committed. The fact that the Russian armed forces in Ukraine are operating within a clearly defined chain of command leading to the Kremlin removes one important obstacle to a prosecution that has served as a stumbling block in other investigations by the court. The chief prosecutor will probably attempt to indict senior Russian officials on charges of war crimes or crimes against humanity by the end of 2022, but at that point the ICC would face a familiar problem: there is no mechanism to compel Russia to extradite suspects so that they may be brought to trial.