Ukrainian Parliament ratifies International Criminal Court statute

The Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) supported the ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Wednesday. 

As reported by MP Yaroslav Zhelezniak on Telegram, 281 MPs voted in favour of this decision.

Before the vote, the MPs received letters of support from the General Staff and Kyrylo Budanov, Ukrainian Defence Intelligence chief.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy submitted a package of bills to the Verkhovna Rada to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court on Thursday, 15 August.

Ukraine's ratification of the Rome Statute of the ICC will mean Ukraine's full accession to the International Criminal Court.

Ukraine is ratifying the Rome Statute with a separate declaration, under which, for seven years after the entry into force of the ratification law, "Ukraine does not recognise the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court over its nationals for crimes under Article 8 of the Rome Statute". It is not yet clear how this provision will work, given that Ukraine has already granted the ICC the right to investigate crimes committed on its territory.

It is worth noting that Ukraine plans to accede to the updated version of the ICC Statute, which also includes Article 8 bis, which appeared as a result of the so-called Kampala Amendments of 2010 and provides for liability for the crime of aggression. However, the ratification is not retrospective (i.e. not retroactive), and liability does not apply to countries that have not ratified the Kampala Amendments (including Russia, which is not a member of the ICC).

Therefore, to bring the Russian leadership to justice for the aggression in 2022, Ukraine will continue to work on the creation of a special tribunal.

The Office of the President explained that the ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court would give Ukraine more tools to bring Russian war criminals to justice.

Ukraine signed the Rome Statute in 2000 but has not ratified it since then, even though a decision of the National Security and Defence Council in 2015 recognised the need for ratification. One reason given was the fear that the ICC could prosecute Ukrainian citizens.