U.S. Calls Putin a ‘War Criminal,’ but Consequences Are Unclear

WASHINGTON — A day after President Biden branded President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia a “conflict prison” over civilian deaths in Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken on Thursday echoed his evaluation and stated Mr. Putin could be held accountable.

“Yesterday, President Biden stated that, in his opinion, conflict crimes have been dedicated in Ukraine. Personally, I agree,” Mr. Blinken stated, citing a listing of horrific Russian assaults which have killed unarmed Ukrainians, together with youngsters. “Deliberately focusing on civilians is a conflict crime.”

However the sensible obstacles to punishing Mr. Putin are enormous, specialists stated, although his battlefield commanders in Ukraine could possibly be extra susceptible. Complicating issues is the truth that the US doesn’t formally acknowledge the Worldwide Legal Court docket, which is the primary discussion board for prosecuting conflict crimes.

Some specialists stated that declaring the Russian chief a conflict prison might make it tougher to barter a peace settlement with him, however that it may also give Ukraine and the West some leverage if Mr. Putin sought to cut price for immunity from any prosecution.

The back-to-back feedback by Mr. Biden and Mr. Blinken marked a transparent change in U.S. language on the topic after weeks of noncommittal statements by American officers at the same time as Ukrainian hospitals and condominium blocks had been pounded to rubble.

Two weeks in the past, the White Home press secretary, Jen Psaki, advised reporters that the US had “not made conclusions” about whether or not conflict crimes had been being dedicated in Ukraine, saying the query was the topic of an official authorized evaluation.

Rising proof of horrific Russian assaults on civilian targets — together with the bombing on Wednesday of a Mariupol theater which will have sheltered lots of of individuals pushed from their properties — has made that place onerous to maintain.

Authorized specialists stated U.S. officers have to be conscious of not seeming to prejudge complicated authorized points which will come to trial, and Mr. Biden and Mr. Blinken each couched their assessments in private phrases, stopping wanting statements of U.S. authorities coverage.

“I believe he’s a conflict prison,” Mr. Biden stated in response to a reporter’s query on Wednesday.

A Senate decision unanimously authorised on Tuesday condemned Mr. Putin for “alleged conflict crimes” in Ukraine.

“The rationale for all their warning is that for any crime, there’s an evidentiary normal that must be met,” stated Oona Hathaway, a professor of worldwide regulation at Yale Legislation Faculty who serves on a State Division authorized advisory board. “For those who’re having a trial, you may’t simply say, Yeah all of us just about assume that he knew what was occurring.”

Ms. Hathaway stated prosecutors must present that Russian commanders had deliberately focused civilian constructions, or struck them throughout assaults that did not discriminate between civilian and navy targets. Within the case of Mr. Putin, prosecutors must reveal that he issued particular orders tied to these actions.

Apprehending and making an attempt anybody confirmed responsible, not least the sitting president of a nuclear-armed nation, is one other matter. “There’s no marshal service that goes with the Worldwide Legal Court docket,” stated Consultant Tom Malinowski, Democrat of New Jersey and a former prime State Division official for human rights.

However Mr. Malinowski and others stated conflict crimes investigations can have a robust deterrent impact. Whereas Russian officers may hope that sanctions in opposition to them will sometime be lifted, an indictment for conflict crimes brings a everlasting stigma and threat of arrest.

With Russia’s navy marketing campaign slowed down and Ukraine claiming to have killed a number of Russian generals, Mr. Putin’s commanders within the subject might need an inexpensive worry of being captured and finally tried for what quantities to mass homicide. Frontline troops is also demoralized by the official investigations.

“The hope is that it creates a disincentive for essentially the most uncovered individuals, who additionally occur to be the individuals closest to the preventing,” Ms. Hathaway stated.

And it’s doable that Mr. Putin could be deposed and will by some means fall into overseas palms. The previous nationalist Serbian chief Slobodan Milosevic, accused of conflict crimes throughout the breakup of Yugoslavia, was arrested by Serbian authorities after his 2001 ouster from workplace and delivered to The Hague for prosecution. (He died throughout his trial in 2006.)

The idea of worldwide justice for conflict crimes was established throughout the Nuremberg trials of Nazi German leaders after World Conflict II. It’s based mostly right now on the Geneva Conventions, a sequence of treaties governing the wartime therapy of civilians, prisoners of conflict and others, which have been adopted by each nation.

Though a number of our bodies and nations are investigating doable conflict crimes in Ukraine, specialists stated the Worldwide Legal Court docket provided the very best probability for actual accountability. Based mostly in The Hague, the courtroom was established in 1998 after separate tribunals prosecuted mass atrocities in Rwanda and the previous Yugoslavia, demonstrating the necessity for a standing judicial physique to deal with such circumstances.

Final month, the highest prosecutor of the Worldwide Legal Court docket, Karim Khan, introduced that he was opening an investigation into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Mr. Khan traveled this week to Poland and Ukraine to start accumulating proof and met just about with President Volodymyr Zelensky.

In an interview with CNN from Ukraine, Mr. Khan stated he would examine whether or not there have been cases the place Ukrainian forces mounted assaults from populated areas that would make them reliable targets. “However even then, it’s no license to make use of cluster bombs or use disproportionate assaults in concentrated civilian areas,” he added.

The US has had a fraught relationship with the courtroom and isn’t amongst its 123 member nations. President George W. Bush revoked President Invoice Clinton’s signature on its founding doc, saying he wouldn’t settle for the courtroom’s jurisdiction over American troops overseas. President Barack Obama cooperated with the courtroom however by no means sought to make the US a member.

The administration of President Donald J. Trump was vividly hostile towards the physique, which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo derided as a “kangaroo courtroom” and biased in opposition to Israel. Mr. Trump even slapped sanctions on its prime prosecutor and others after she started an inquiry into alleged conflict crimes by U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

“Historically, the U.S. has objected to assertion of jurisdiction by the I.C.C. over U.S. nationals as a result of the U.S. by no means accepted the jurisdiction of the courtroom,” stated Todd Buchwald, the top of the State Division’s Workplace of World Legal Justice throughout the Obama administration. “The query is, how can we take into consideration this now?”

Different our bodies might prosecute alleged Russian conflict crimes. The United Nations or allied international locations might set up particular tribunals, and particular person nations also can assert what is called common jurisdiction, a authorized idea permitting a nation’s courtroom to strive individuals for human rights crimes. In January, a German courtroom following the precept convicted a former safety official for the Syrian authorities on torture fees.

However the Syrian, Anwar Raslan, had migrated to Germany, the place he presumably didn’t count on to be recognized and apprehended.

Russian officers are extremely unlikely to make themselves susceptible to such arrests.

“A really huge drawback is definitely getting individuals within the dock,” stated Matthew Waxman, a regulation professor at Columbia College who served in senior nationwide safety roles within the Bush administration.

“I’m very uncertain that Putin will ever discover himself in The Hague,” he added.

Edward Wong contributed reporting.