“Ukraine: the crime of aggression”, by Augusto Hernández Campos

By Augusto Hernandez Campos

The Russian invasion against Ukraine decreed by Vladimir Putin

on February 24, 2022 has configured the crime of aggression, in accordance with International Law, and as typified in the Statute of the International Criminal Court, war of aggression condemned by the international society represented by the General Assembly of the United Nations.

The crime of aggression as the commission of an act or a war of aggression by one State against another is established in customary International Law (IL) since the end of World War II. However, as the remembered jurist Antonio Cassese reminds us, aggression as a breach of international treaties that entails the responsibility of the State dates back to the Convention of the League of Nations and the Treaty of Paris for the Prohibition of War of 1928. The crime of aggression in International Criminal Law, which configures individual responsibility, had been classified as crime against peace

in the process before the Nuremberg International Court of 1945 and reaffirmed by Resolution 95-I of the UN General Assembly of 1946 (“The Nuremberg Principles”). In the Statute of the International Criminal Court, article 8Bis it is considered that “a person commits a crime of aggression […] when, being in a position to control […] political or military action of a State, said person plans, prepares, initiates or carries out an act of aggression that

constitutes a manifest violation of the UN Charter”. […] Likewise, said article considers as an act or war of aggression “a) The invasion or attack by the armed forces of a State of the territory of another State,

or any annexation, by the use of force, of the territory of another State”.

With the war of invasion of Ukraine, Russia has incurred international responsibility of the State for violation of the Charter of the UN, art. 2, paragraphs 1, 3, 4 and 7 (sovereign equality of States, peaceful settlement of disputes, prohibition of the use of force, and non-intervention). This may motivate a lawsuit by kyiv against Moscow before the ICJ (International Court of Justice) for violation of the UN Charter. […]However, the ICJ had already issued an interim order on March 16 (in Ukraine’s lawsuit against Russia for violation of the Genocide Convention) demanding that “The Russian Federation immediately suspend the military operations that began on February 24, 2022 on the territory of Ukraine

.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Yevgeny BIYATOV / Sputnik / AFP).

Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Yevgeny BIYATOV / Sputnik / AFP).

In addition, Putin and his associates in the Russian government have incurred individual international criminal responsibility for perpetrating a war of aggression against Ukraine in 2014 and now in 2022, and for proclaiming the annexation of Crimea and segregating territories from Ukraine to create puppet states. from Donetsk and Luhansk. In addition, Putin and associates of him incurred responsibility for the aggression against Georgia in 2008. It goes without saying that the Russian argument of preventive war against Ukraine (according to Putin, kyiv was planning to attack Russian interests), is not accepted by the DI, since art. 51 of the Charter speaks of self defense against an actual attack, not supposed or future, while the ICJ jurisprudence in the Corfu Canal case

rejects the validity of preventive wars.

The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine has received worldwide condemnation expressed unequivocally in Resolution ES-11/1 of March 2, 2022 of the United Nations General Assembly, which declares that it “deplores in the strongest terms the aggression committed by the Russian Federation against Ukraine, in violation of Article 2, para. 4, of the Charter”.

Likewise, in this same Resolution, the General Assembly has condemned the complicity of Belarus in this invasion stating that: “Deplores the participation of Belarus in this illicit use of force against Ukraine and urges the country to comply with its international obligations.” Due to his co-participation in the crime of aggression against Ukraine, the Belarusian dictator Lukashenko has also incurred individual international criminal responsibility. The restoration of global peace, the end of the aggression against Ukraine and the cessation of a threat of a world war require that Russia respect the principles established in the UN Charter and in the Declaration on Friendly Relations among States

proclaimed in Resolution 2625 of the UN General Assembly.(

Source: Elcomercio