Dominic Raab, Deputy Prime Minister, will meet ministers from all over the world at The Hague on Thursday to show support for the ongoing investigation into the ICC.
This meeting follows a statement by U.S. Secretary Antony Blinken that the Biden administration made a formal determination Russian troops had committed war crimes against Ukraine. He also said that they would cooperate with other countries to bring them to justice.
Although the U.S. isn’t a member of the ICC but it could still help a prosecution by gathering evidence against Russian forces within Ukraine. This would be done using some of its vast capabilities to monitor and track what’s been going on in the conflict.
The U.S. could also support and back a U.N. Human Rights Council-established commission of inquiry.
The Hague meeting took place as Biden and other NATO leader gathered in Brussels to commemorate the one-month anniversary Russian invasion.
Raab states that the U.K. is a member and will contribute 1 million pounds ($1.3million) to the ICC. He also plans to assign soldiers who are experts in intelligence gathering to the court in order to uncover evidence of war crimes. To assist the investigation, a war crimes team from the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command is also being mobilized.
Raab stated in a statement that the UK was uniting a coalition international partners to provide funding and law enforcement support for the ICC’s investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine.
He said that President Putin and his commanders must know they will be held accountable for their actions and could end up spending the rest their lives behind bars.
Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the ICC, opened an investigation into this matter earlier in the month, after dozens ICC member states asked him to open a probe. Khan visited Ukraine earlier this month as part of the investigation. He also sent his staff there to start gathering evidence.
The court is not a member of Russia or Ukraine, but Ukraine has accepted its jurisdiction.
Already, the court has begun a preliminary investigation into the crimes connected to the violent suppression in Kyiv of pro-European demonstrations in 2013-2014 by pro-Russian Ukrainian authorities and allegations of crimes on the Crimean Peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014 and eastern Ukraine, where Moscow supports rebels since 2014. Khan’s predecessor Fatou Bensouda stated that the court found “a wide range of conduct constituting war crime and crimes against humanity within its jurisdiction have been committed” in Ukraine.
Khan is also investigating these findings.