Highlight 31/2025: Why the US and other states should remain committed to the Hague International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression in Ukraine?
Sepehr Kherad, 30 June 2025
‘War never changes its hideous phantasms.’ Theodore Roosevelt’s passage in a letter to his sister referred to the vile acts against humanity committed during the Spanish-American war. To this day, after more treaties and diplomatic peacekeeping dialogues than there are visible stars in the nightsky, war still carries these ‘hideous phantasms’. In the past 3 years, the Russian army decimated villages, murdered civilians, tortured Prisoners of War (POWs) and has shown no sign of stopping. After President Trump affirmed his incumbency through a marathon of decrees and policy reconfigurations, he has half-pointed his gaze towards the European conflict. Hope that presidential attention would translate to a catalyst capable of rapidly ending the current struggle of attrition has largely been erased from pundits’ analyses. Last March, the US pulled a fast one on allies when it quietly withdrew its participation in the International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression in Ukraine (ICPA). Housed in The Hague premises of the Eurojust headquarters with support from the neighboring International Criminal Court (ICC), ICPA is a nascent organization made up of countries determined to bring justice to perpretrators of the Ukraine invasion. Founded in 2023 by announcement of Ursula von der Leyen, its purpose is holding political and military leadership in Russia and allied states (China, Iran, Belarus, North Korea) accountable for crimes of aggression committed throughout the invasion. In practice, the activities encompass training Ukranian prosecutors and preserving evidence for potential trials in the future at (inter)national courts. As Russia is not party to the Rome statute, ICC jurisdiction does not hold for the Russian-Ukraine crimes of aggression, meaning other avenues have to be pursued, mostly at local courts. Given the limited time until evidence disappears and complex slow legal processes, the work of ICPA is highly important. The US as the sole non-European member posting a senior prosecutor, was committed to contributing its part. Back across the pond, the Biden-era Justice Department founded a War crimes accountability team to coordinate actions within ICPA and beyond. While sources disclosed to the New York Times that Trump’s withdrawal of ICPA is based on grounds of resource re-allocation, one can only speculate which signal the Trump administration is sending towards its allies. Without American support in the fight against crimes of aggression, the cardhouse might collapse, Russia could walk away without consequences, the world would be worse off for it. If there is only one thing the US could change in its foreign policy, it should be the re-integration into the ICPA. Although war might never change, the voice of justice by the international society should grow to hold perpetrators accountable for each heinous act.
Sepehr Kherad, Highlight 31/2025: Why the US and other states should remain committed to the Hague International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression in Ukraine?, 30 June 2025, available at www.meig.ch
The views expressed in the MEIG Highlights are personal to the authors and neither reflect the positions of the MEIG Programme nor those of the University of Geneva.