The Diplomat
The Council of Ministers yesterday approved an agreement requesting the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, to investigate alleged war crimes in Ukraine. In doing so, Spain joins a joint request made by 38 states to the court in The Hague in the wake of the Russian invasion.
According to the agreement approved yesterday, Spain has decided to “refer the situation in Ukraine to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in order to request him to investigate all acts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide alleged to have occurred on the territory of Ukraine as of 21 November 2013, including allegations of current and ongoing crimes occurring throughout the territory of Ukraine, thereby requesting the Court to exercise its jurisdiction with respect to the jurisdictional scope accepted by Ukraine.”
The request is based on Article 14 of the Rome Statute – establishing the International Criminal Court – which provides that any State Party may refer to the Prosecutor any suspicion of the commission of one or more crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court and request that these facts be investigated in order to determine possible charges.
Following Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, 38 States, including Spain, have agreed to make use of this article by sending a consensual letter to the Prosecutor. As explained yesterday by the Government spokeswoman, Isabel Rodríguez, at the press conference following the Council of Ministers, the letter has been agreed by the 38 States in view of the “escalation of atrocities committed during the invasion and as a sign of solidarity with the Ukrainian people”. “Spain believes that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin will have to be held accountable before the International Criminal Court and alleged war crimes against humanity or genocide should be investigated,” she added.
According to the 2003 Law on Cooperation with the International Criminal Court, it is exclusively up to the Government, by agreement of the Council of Ministers and on the joint proposal of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Justice, to decide on the filing of the complaint. The request will be forwarded to the Prosecutor by the Spanish Embassy in The Hague (Netherlands), the seat of the ICC. For its part, the Attorney General’s Office has also opened its own investigations to analyze these facts within the scope of Spanish law, the spokeswoman explained.
“At the proposal of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Justice, the Council of Ministers has arranged today the referral of our request,” said Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares, via his official Twitter account. The Rome Statute has not been signed or ratified by the United States, Russia or China, among other countries.
