Send Putin to The Hague

The International Criminal Court has formally opened an investigation into war crimes in Ukraine, after being asked to by 39 countries:

The prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague has announced that he will launch an investigation into possible war crimes or crimes against humanity in Ukraine.

Karim Khan said that although Ukraine was not a member of the ICC, it had awarded jurisdiction to the court. He said that there was grounds to open an investigation based on a previous preliminary investigation on Crimea and the Donbas published last year, and on current events in Ukraine.

“I have already tasked my team to explore all evidence preservation opportunities,” Khan, a British lawyer, said.

Which is good, because war crimes and crimes against humanity are undoubtedly being committed by Russian forces in Ukraine, and they need to be prosecuted. But thanks to a quirk of the Rome Statute, the real crime here - the crime of aggression ( "the supreme international crime" which "contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole") - will not be part of the investigation. Neither Ukraine or Russia is a party to the Rome Statute (though Ukraine has accepted jurisdiction), so the ICC cannot prosecute for aggression. Which means firstly, that we need to reform the Rome Statute so that it can; and secondly, that until that happens, we will need a special-purpose tribunal to prosecute this crime and hold Putin accountable.