The ICC, based in The Hague, has launched an investigation into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the context of the war launched by Moscow against Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Several countries are to announce Monday the mobilization of additional resources to support the investigation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) into alleged war crimes committed in Ukraine, on the occasion of an international conference of ministers of Justice in London.
On Friday, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for the war crime of “illegal deportation” of Ukrainian children.
To carry out its investigations, the ICC needs financial and technical means and last December, its prosecutor Karim Khan, who will be present at the London conference, called on the international community to increase its support for the institution.
“We need the tools to do the job. We don’t have those tools,” he said.
Several hundred thousand euros
More than 40 states will be represented in London on Monday at this conference organized jointly by the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, the British government said.
London has already announced additional funding of nearly 400,000 pounds sterling (452,000 euros), bringing its total support to one million pounds (1.13 million euros) since last year, to fund psychological support for witnesses and victims of crimes or the reinforcement of British experts at the ICC.
This conference defends “a cause, to hold war criminals accountable for the atrocities committed in Ukraine during this unjust, unprovoked and illegal invasion”, declared the British Minister for Justice Dominic Raab, in a press release.
The Ukrainians “deserve our support to obtain justice”, insisted his Dutch counterpart Dilan Yesilgöz-Zegerius.
Since the start of the war, the United Kingdom has been the second most financially involved country in support of Ukraine, behind the United States, with more than 2 billion pounds in 2022, an amount which must also be mobilized in 2023.
