Russia must face tribunal for 'crime of aggression' in Ukraine - UK cross-party leaders

The Guardian reported this. 

Labor leader Keir Starmer, the former Nato secretary general George Robertson, the former foreign secretary David Owen, and former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith say the tribunal should be set up to try the "manifestly illegal war" on the same lines as the Allies, meeting in 1941 to lay the groundwork for the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials of Nazi leaders.

“It has been 10 months since Russia, backed by Belarus, launched one of the largest ground invasions in Europe since the second world war,” they write. “Since then, thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed or injured, 8 million people have been internally displaced and around 8 million have become refugees. Civilian infrastructure and economic assets worth tens of billions have been destroyed or plundered, and irreplaceable cultural monuments reduced to rubble,” the statement says.

“If proven in court, these acts of aggression could constitute what the Nuremberg trials termed the ‘supreme international crime’. For it is the crime of aggression from which most other international crimes – war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide – often flow,” the publication says. 

The publication notes that the statement was made by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Philippe Sands, a law professor who first put forward the idea of ​​creating a special tribunal. Among those who signed the statement are human rights lawyers Cherie Blair and Helena Kennedy.

Although the International Criminal Court (ICC) already hears charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the invasion of Ukraine, supporters of the special tribunal say it is necessary because the ICC does not have the authority to try the crime of aggression.