The International Criminal Court (ICC) has agreed to join an investigative team probing war crimes that Russia is allegedly carrying out against Ukraine. This agreement between ICC prosecutor Karim Khan and the prosecutor general representing Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania aims to increase cooperation regarding the exchange of information and inquiry of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Following an exceptional number of requests from the ICC’s member states, this arrangement marks the first participation between an investigative team and the international war crimes tribunal.

According to an interview given to Reuters, the Eurojust agency explains that, “With this agreement, parties are sending a clear message that all efforts will be undertaken to effectively gather evidence on core international crimes committed in Ukraine and bring those responsible to justice.” As confirmed by Karim Khan, the ICC’s participation is a result of its reasonable supposition that war crimes have been committed in Ukrainian territory. An ICC statement on this matter expresses that this joint investigative team will ideally enable “rapid and real-time coordination and cooperation” between legal authorities.

The war in Ukraine comprises an element of international conflict that affects state governments. For instance, Russia’s actions are especially problematic for the international community because they violate the United Nations agreements on national sovereignty. However, there is an added component of this war that involves the disruption of peace and catastrophe that has been experienced by Ukrainian civilians. The UN estimates that the civilian death toll is over 2,000 and that there are over 5 million people who fled Ukraine to seek refuge in other countries. Thus, Russia’s actions in Ukraine have impacted civilians in a manner that has not been witnessed since World War II. For this reason, the advancement of peaceful processes used to resist this war are reliant upon legal institutions that are unified in their efforts.

In discussing the addition of the ICC to the joint investigation, it is vital to understand what is meant by war crimes and crimes against humanity. As outlined by the Rome Statute of the ICC, the extensive definition of war crimes include: intentional attacks against the civilian population and/or civilian property and attacks against undefended towns, villages, or buildings which are not military objectives. Moreover, a crime against humanity is dependent on the premise that the crime is being carried out against a civilian population. The ICC defines these crimes as actions such as murder, torture, and deportation. As these terms relate to the ongoing events in Ukraine, various state leaders and prosecutors have cited Russia’s destruction of numerous Ukrainian buildings, schools, hospitals, civilian vehicles, critical infrastructure, and civilian deaths as evidence of war crimes. In order to address crimes of this nature, the ICC is tasked with investigating, persecuting, and trying individual war criminals. It will collect evidence from past allegations dating back to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, as well as from current allegations. If the evidence is strong, ICC judges can issue arrest warrants to bring individuals to trial in The Hague. Civilians and nations alike who oppose the war in Ukraine will look to such legal processes as a means to uphold international criminal justice.

As far as how future projected actions taken by legal institutions relate to the greater matter of international peace, it is important to recognize that ICC actions against war criminals alone will not result in justice. Namely, the power of the ICC is restricted by its own charter. For instance, because it does not have a police force, arrest warrants need to be carried out by individual nations. However because Russia is not a court member, it will not likely extradite any suspects residing in Russia. Additionally, the ICC emphasizes the chain of command during the persecution of war criminals, so high-up government officials, like Putin, are unlikely to face a trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Thus, because the entire nature of Russia’s war in Ukraine is representative of a monumental breach in international security, legal measures will need to be combined with diplomatic, political, economic, and social efforts in order to successfully and peacefully mitigate this conflict.