The International Criminal Court has launched an investigation into war in Ukraine as pressure mounts to prosecute Russian President Vladimir Putin as a war criminal.
The case against Putin could quickly escalate as the list of alleged violations grows: the bombing of a maternity hospitalthe bombing of political targets and an attack on a nuclear power plant that created the ghost of a nuclear disaster in the heart of Europe.
But a conviction could prove elusive. The International Criminal Court, to which the United States does not belong, has a history of 10 convictions for two decades.
“The first way they can build it – and it may be enough in this case – they can see the pattern of the attack,” Stephen Rapp, a former US ambassador to war crimes, told CBS News. , Catherine. Heritage.
Rap, who has built up cases against dictators and sought to be held accountable for genocide, said Putin would be considered an “international outcast” if he was charged with war crimes.
“It also means he can not travel anywhere, not other peaks, because he would put himself in danger,” Rapp said.
Ensuring justice in court is not done quickly.
The court had to revoke the arrest warrant for Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi after he was executed by his own people. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been in power for almost a decade after allegedly using chemical weapons against Syrians.
Although the United States is not part of the International Criminal Court, a National Security Council spokesman told CBS News that the United States is already gathering evidence of alleged war crimes and human rights abuses that could be used in criminal proceedings.
The US Embassy in Kyiv called The attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is a “war crime”. But hours later, the White House called back the language.
“We have not reached any conclusions, it is a legal review and a process that goes through the administration,” said White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
Rap said the bar was “too high” to prove war crimes had been committed, but “given the intensity of this campaign and the destruction of civilians, I think it could develop in a few weeks.”
Matthew Kroenig, who worked on Russia’s nuclear and intelligence community portfolios under the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations, told CBS News that there was a growing threat from Russia’s stockpile of low-performance weapons known as regular nuclear weapons.
“These are weapons that will be used not to attack, say, Washington or New York, but to win a battle on the Ukrainian field,” Krening said.
The use of regular nuclear weapons against civilians would be a “high-level war crime,” he said.
This week, intelligence officials warned of a Russian policy called “escalation for de-escalation”, which means the use of regular nuclear weapons on the battlefield to intimidate an opponent.
“I think before he lost the war, he would try to use nuclear weapons to try to pull victory out of the jaws of defeat,” Krenning said of Putin. “I think the risk of nuclear war is still low. But I think the risk is higher now than at any other time we have seen in recent years.”
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