Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine

In 2022 and 2023, several international bodies announced their support for establishing a tribunal for prosecuting the crime of aggression against Ukraine, including the Council of Europe, Proposals In April 2022 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) called for an ad hoc international criminal tribunal. In September 2022, the Council of Europe proposed to create a tribunal that would have a mandate to "investigate and prosecute the crime of aggression" committed by "the political and military leadership of the Russian Federation." Under the Council of Europe's proposal, the tribunal should be located in Strasbourg, "apply the definition of the crime of aggression" established in customary international law and "have the power to issue international arrest warrants and not be limited by State immunity or the immunity of heads of State and government and other State officials." In November 2022 the NATO Parliamentary Assembly designated the Russian Federation as a terrorist organization and called upon the international community to "take collective action towards the establishment of an international tribunal to prosecute the crime of aggression committed by Russia with its war against Ukraine." The European Commission said that the European Union (EU) would work to establish an ad hoc criminal tribunal to investigate and prosecute Russia's crime of aggression. In the same month the European Parliament also designated Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, citing attacks against civilians, war crimes, and atrocities. On 19 January 2023, the European Parliament called for the creation of an international tribunal to carry out investigations and prosecutions for Russian and Belarusian responsibility for the crime of aggression, complementary to the International Criminal Court investigation in Ukraine. The vote passed with 472 votes in favour, 19 against and 33 abstentions. In March 2025, the core group held its fourteenth and final meeting, finishing the technical preparation of drafts of three documents: a bilateral agreement between Ukraine and the Council of Europe (CoE) to establish the tribunal; the tribunal's statutes; and a management document. Hosting of the tribunal was likely to be in The Hague. It was expected that trials in absentia for prosecuting Russian leaders while they remained in office would be excluded. Planned formalisation of the agreements was scheduled for signing by Ukrainian authorities on 9 May 2025, to be followed by a vote by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression Following European Union (EU) supported negotiations in March 2023, and given that neither Ukraine nor Russia had at that time ratified the 2010 ICC Kampala Amendments to the Rome Statute that added the crime of aggression alongside war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide to ICC jurisdiction, the International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression (ICPA) was created in July 2023 by Eurojust to gather evidence and coordinate judicial actions related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a crime of aggression. The creation of the centre was seen as a first step towards creating a tribunal. Aims of the ICPA would include supporting exchange of evidence and coordination of investigative and prosecutorial strategies. An EU joint investigation team including Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Latvia, Estonian, Polish and Romanian representatives participated in establishing the ICPA. The creation of the ICPA was the first institutional action to investigate a specific crime of aggression since World War II. that excludes jurisdiction when the crime is done on the territory of, or by nationals of, a state that is not an ICC member state. Ukraine was not a member state at the time of the full-scale invasion, having not yet ratified the Rome Statute, nor were Russia and Belarus. The ICC declared its willingness to support and cooperate with the ICPA. == Steps towards creation ==

On 9 May 2025, representatives of 35 states and the Council of Europe (CoE) met in Lviv and, with support from head of EU foreign policy Kaja Kallas and EU Commissioner Michael McGrath, agreed to proceed with creating the proposed tribunal, stating that legal instruments were technically complete. A followup meeting on 13–14 May in Luxembourg by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe was scheduled for further formal steps in creating the tribunal. On 25 June 2025, the statute of the Special Tribunal was officially published as an annex to a formal legal agreement between the Council of Europe and Ukraine. By early December 2025, according to Kateryna Rashevska of the Ukrainian NGO Regional Center for Human Rights, the EU had provided million in funding for the tribunal, The Hague had been chosen as the location of the tribunal, and the practical creation of the tribunal was expected "by 2026 or 2027". Veronika Sentsov-Velch, the director of the Ukrainian section of Amnesty International, predicted that the tribunal's initial investigations would focus on "a group of approximately 20 high-ranking Russian officials". ==Statute of the Tribunal==

The Tribunal has jurisdiction to prosecute individuals bearing the greatest responsibility for the crime of aggression committed against Ukraine, applying its own Statute, the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, relevant international treaties, customary international law and, where necessary, the criminal law of Ukraine. Like the International Criminal Court, the Tribunal guarantees fundamental procedural safeguards, including the right to a fair trial, the right not to be tried twice for the same conduct, the presumption of innocence, and the right to remain silent. resembles the single judge formation used by the European Court of Human Rights for filtering admissibility. Office of the Prosecutor The Office of the Prosecutor is an independent organ of the Tribunal, responsible for conducting impartial investigations and prosecutions of those who bear the greatest responsibility for the crime of aggression against Ukraine. Enforcement of sentences takes place in States that have concluded agreements with the Tribunal, or in Ukraine if no agreement exists. Sentences cannot be enforced in the host State. ==Analysis==

Before June 2025 In 2023, some international lawyers criticized the proposed tribunal. Kevin Jon Heller stated practical concerns, including obtaining suspects and evidence, predicted that the tribunal would not necessarily "be able to prosecute Russian officials who would be entitled to immunity ratione personae", and expressed worries about the "selectivity of international criminal justice" that it would express. Sergey Vasiliev argued that an ad hoc tribunal would be unable to secure the presence of Putin or other defendants in the absence of Russian cooperation. In contrast, Carrie McDougall argued that an ad hoc tribunal was the best available option to try this particular case of aggression for which the International Criminal Court lacks jurisdiction. The idea is also supported by Evhen Tsybulenko and Henna Rinta-Pollari, who stated: "...the most appropriate approach to prosecuting the crime in the context of the Russo-Ukrainian war is to establish an international ad hoc tribunal, either through a treaty signed by the United Nations and Ukraine on the basis of a referral from the United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations Secretary-General or a multilateral treaty between Ukraine and other states supported by the United Nations". June 2025–present In June 2025, Pavel Latushko of the Belarusian opposition institution National Anti-Crisis Management stated his certainty that Alexander Lukashenko would be indicted by the Special Tribunal, since according to Latushko, Lukashenko's responsibility in allowing Russian forces to use Belarusian territory to invade Ukraine constitutes aggression under Article 3 of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3314 (XXIX). Law professor Kevin Jon Heller felt that the requirement requiring all judges to be of different nationalities removed the possibility of providing training to Ukrainian judges, since at most one Ukrainian judge could participate at any time. He objected to the range of possible penalties, arguing in favour of life sentences for leadership in the crime of aggression. Heller strongly objected to Article 23(1), which gives the Ukrainian Prosecutor General sole authority for initiating legal cases. He stated that the article effectively gives Ukraine control over the tribunal, which he suggests is unprecedented in the case of international criminal tribunals, and subjects the tribunal to the risk of political changes in Ukraine or corruption of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General. Kate McInnes, director of the Canadian law firm Arendt Chamber, stated that the temporary immunity for heads of state, heads of government, and foreign ministers provided in Article 23(5) of the Statute applies to the people most likely to be responsible for a possible crime of aggression (which is a leadership crime). Moreover, the perpetrators of the aggression against Ukraine are generally authoritarian (Russian, Belarusian, or North Korean) leaders who have consolidated power in order to retain it until their death (or until a regime crisis). Consequently, McInnes argues that the Statute has a practical effect of granting lifetime immunity to the perpetrators of the crime of aggression. This temporary immunity was not included in the report of the 1919 Commission on the Responsibility of the Authors of the War, which rejected such immunity on the grounds that such impunity would "shock the conscience of civilized mankind". McInnes thus sees the Special Tribunal as weakening international law. == See also ==