Thirty-Six Nations Sign Treaty to Prosecute Russian Leaders for Ukraine Invasion

Thirty-six countries and the European Union signed the statute creating a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine on May 15 in Chișinău, Moldova. The court, housed in The Hague, will target the Russian officials who ordered the invasion, from Vladimir Putin to his top generals. It is the first international tribunal dedicated to prosecuting aggression since Nuremberg and Tokyo. But the gap between building a court and putting anyone in the dock remains vast, and the coalition behind it is narrower than its architects would like.

What the Court Can Do, and Why It Was Necessary

The tribunal exists because of a flaw in the existing system. The ICC (the world's permanent war crimes court) cannot prosecute aggression if the accused country is not a member. Russia signed the ICC's founding treaty in 2000 but withdrew in 2016. The only workaround is a UN Security Council referral, which Moscow can veto.

The new tribunal bypasses both obstacles through a "enlarged partial agreement," a Council of Europe mechanism that lets willing states act without unanimous consent (Jurist). The statute strips head-of-state immunity. Putin, his prime minister, and his foreign minister can be indicted, though proceedings against those three are automatically suspended while they remain in office. Military commanders like Valery Gerasimov and Sergey Shoygu face no such protection and can be tried in absentia immediately.

Participating states will elect 15 judges, with a single independent prosecutor serving a seven-year term (Cambridge International Legal Materials). Ukraine expects first verdicts by 2028 (Ukrainska Pravda).

The Enforcement Problem

The tribunal has no police force. Every arrest depends on a member state choosing to act. History offers a sobering guide. The ICC issued a warrant for Putin in 2023; Mongolia failed to detain him when he visited. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon convicted Hezbollah members in absentia in 2020 for assassinating former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. None were ever arrested. The Yugoslav tribunal indicted Radovan Karadžić in 1995; Serbia arrested him thirteen years later, only when EU accession ambitions made sheltering him more expensive than handing him over.

Moscow has already signalled how it views the court. On May 13, the Russian Duma voted 384–0 to authorize the president to deploy military force abroad to "protect Russian citizens" facing prosecution in foreign or international courts (TASS, DW). The law codifies the same doctrine Russia invoked before entering Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014.

A Coalition With Gaps

The tribunal's 36 signatories are overwhelmingly European (Council of Europe, DW). Only two non-European states joined: Australia and Costa Rica. No African, Asian, or major Latin American government endorsed it. The absence feeds a critique already circulating in non-aligned capitals: that this is selective Western justice, applied to Russia but never to NATO interventions in Iraq or Libya.

Within Europe, 12 Council of Europe members refused to sign. Four are EU states: Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Malta. Hungary and Slovakia have repeatedly blocked EU sanctions packages and used the Druzhba oil pipeline as leverage. Bulgaria's caretaker government offered no public justification. GERB, the main opposition party, called the refusal a "political mistake" incompatible with NATO and EU membership. Among non-EU holdouts, Turkey's absence stands out: a NATO member declining to endorse accountability for aggression against a partner state.

The United States, which is not a Council of Europe member, has stayed silent. Washington previously preferred a lower-profile hybrid tribunal and fears that normalizing aggression prosecution could expose American military operations to future legal challenge. The Trump administration's non-engagement has raised concerns about budgetary shortfalls for a court whose estimated annual operating cost is €75 million. The European Commission has pledged €10 million for initial setup, but long-term funding remains unresolved.

The Open File

The tribunal's value may depend less on convictions than on timing. International courts build legal records. Those records activate when domestic politics shift. France joined the steering committee in April, with Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot declaring "Il n'y a pas de paix sans la justice, ni de justice sans la vérité" (Le Figaro). The Netherlands confirmed The Hague as the seat, adding another layer to the city's role as the world's judicial capital.

Whether the court moves from indictment to enforcement depends on questions no statute can answer: how long Putin stays in power, whether his generals ever travel outside Russia, and whether Europe's coalition holds when the political cost of enforcement rises.