On Wednesday, June 25, President Volodymyr Zelensky and Secretary General of the Council of Europe Alain Berset will sign in Strasbourg an agreement on the establishment of a Special International Tribunal to consider crimes of aggression against Ukraine.
The Council of Europe press service reported this.
Agreement on establishment of tribunal to be signed in Strasbourg
The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe authorized Berse to sign the relevant agreement, which includes the Statute of the special tribunal.
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“Justice for Ukraine will not wait,” Berse said on the eve of the signing.
According to him, this will be the first special international tribunal created specifically to consider crimes of aggression, and it will operate within the framework of the Council of Europe.
“This tribunal will hold accountable those who used force in violation of the UN Charter, without double standards, applying international law without double standards and confirming that European security is not based on silence or impunity, but on law, principles and action,” he stressed.
The Council of Europe added that the Committee of Ministers had completed work on the legal documents that would form the basis for the tribunal's activities, and had also agreed to create an extended partial agreement.
This will make it possible to attract not only members of the Council of Europe, but also other states and the European Union to support the tribunal.
What is known about the tribunal
The tribunal will be created within the Council of Europe to hold senior officials accountable for the crime of aggression – the illegal use of force against Ukraine, which violates the UN Charter.
Unlike the International Criminal Court, which has no jurisdiction over the crime, the new tribunal will fill a gap in international justice.
The Council of Europe's priorities also include the launch of a commission to review applications to the Register of Losses, which already contains more than 34,000 applications, and a special tribunal to investigate the crime of aggression.
The European Court of Human Rights remains the only international judicial body that hears cases of human rights violations related to the full-scale aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine.
