Ukraine ratifies the Statute for Accession to the International Criminal Court

Kyiv, Ukraine — Ukraine has ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, taking a step towards membership that Kyiv says will increase the chances of prosecuting Russian war crimes and victims' chances of receiving compensation.

The Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, voted on Wednesday to ratify the founding treaty of the ICC, which currently has 124 member states.

“We are trying to take real steps on all fronts of international justice to bring the Russian Federation to justice,” said Deputy Justice Minister Iryna Mudra.

“Ratification of the Rome Statute will increase victims’ chances of receiving compensation for Russian war crimes,” she added.

Ukraine is not a member of the Court but has recognized its jurisdiction since 2013. The Court's Prosecutor's Office launched an investigation in 2022.

In 2023, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia's presidential envoy for children's rights, on allegations of war crimes related to the forced deportation of Ukrainian children. The following year, further arrest warrants were issued for Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russian Army Chief of General Staff General Valery Gerasimov.

Membership in the ICC is also a prerequisite for joining the European Union, which Ukraine is seeking. In June 2022, four months after the start of Russia's large-scale invasion, the country was officially recognized as a candidate.

The document was originally signed by the Ukrainian government in 2000, but the Constitutional Court blocked ratification in 2001, declaring it unconstitutional to give the International Criminal Court the power to rule on Ukraine's actions.

The question of ICC membership arose again in 2014 after Russia illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine and occupied parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

However, many Ukrainians feared that ratification of the Rome Statute could give the ICC the ability to prosecute Ukrainian citizens involved in the armed conflict on Ukrainian territory.

To address these concerns, the law includes a clause stating that Ukraine does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC in cases where the crimes may have been committed by Ukrainian nationals.

Liz Evenson, international justice director at Human Rights Watch, welcomed the move as “a welcome step forward in building a global system to prosecute the worst crimes.”

However, it called on Kyiv to ratify the Rome Statute without reservation.

“However, the restrictions in the law risk evading justice for perpetrators. They also fail to meet the needs and hopes of victims and survivors in Ukraine who have been campaigning for ICC membership for years,” Evenson said.

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Associated Press writer Molly Quell in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed.