Alfred Yekatom recently peered unperturbed into the courtroom as a witness described how her family survived a nighttime robbery organized by the defendant.. Former CAR militant leader faces long list of allegations.

Among the killings, torture, conscription of children into the army and the robbery of a mosque in 2013, one charge stands out in particular - crimes against humanity.. That is why Ekatom, who denies everything, was sitting in the dock far from home - in The Hague, the Dutch city where the International Criminal Court is located.. Procedures are very slow. The trial has been going on for three years now.. If a trio of blue-robed judges find him guilty, the Central African military and politician will be behind bars for a very long time..

Can the President of Russia be where the thugs from the Central African Republic are The Economist writes about it. "

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The moral justification for such a case is very powerful and relies on the atrocities committed by the Russian military, the bombing of civilians, and the very fact of invading the territory of a neighboring country.. All this, of course, requires punishment.. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has listed the persecution of Russian leaders as one of the ten things that must be done to establish peace.. German Foreign Minister Annalena Burbock is among those demanding that Putin be brought to justice.. Foreign investigators work in Ukraine, collecting evidence for the future trial.

But there is an obvious reality: Putin will not end up in the dock of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.. Limited international criminal justice in its modern form simply does not concern the leaders of nuclear states.. However, there are still some opportunities for prosecuting Russian crimes..

“Putin’s actual immunity is a consequence of the weakness of the international judicial system. If legal proceedings in countries have a clear status and clear tribunals, international law, as defined by legal scholars, is signed agreements and established norms.. Countries can join and leave it at their own discretion. After all, there is no global police force to enforce it..

The first obstacle for those who would like to see Putin behind bars is that Russia is not a member of the International Criminal Court.. Some experts say it's not a problem. The UN may create a special tribunal, as was the case in Rwanda and Yugoslavia in the 1990s after the massacres there. Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic spent his last years in court and died in a Dutch detention center. It might suit Putin too.

Precedents are very important for international law. And now there is no one that could send Putin to prison. There are two broad categories of charges that those responsible for the Russian war against Ukraine may face.. One of them concerns war crimes and crimes against humanity.. These are cases where civilians suffer during the conflict, for example, when they are robbed or raped by the military. Soldiers who commit such atrocities could face trial (as has already happened to some Russians in Ukraine). Theoretically, their commanders and political leaders could also be held accountable.. In fact, it will be difficult to even prove that they ordered to behave this way..

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That is why Ukraine and its allies are talking about the second category of accusations - the crime of aggression.. The act of invading a neighboring country is one that can be blamed entirely on politicians. But pursuing such a crime is uncharted territory from a legal standpoint.. So far, there have been only two such cases: the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after World War II. And the countries that were affected by the prosecution themselves asked for it (it should be remembered that at that time the governments of Germany and Japan were under the control of the US and allies). Without invading Russia and overthrowing Putin, it's hard to imagine anything like this happening..

The ad hoc tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia also give little hope. Both processes were launched by the UN Security Council, which approved similar tribunals in other places such as Sierra Leone.. Given Russian abuses of the veto power in this organization, it is impossible for Russia to repeat such an experience.. Some legal experts believe that the UN General Assembly, where each country has one vote and no veto, could create such a court.. But such a workaround would take international law far beyond current borders.. And it is not guaranteed that the initiative will get the right votes: many countries, including the United States, do not want to give international courts more power..

However, there are two options and neither of them is satisfactory.. The first is to prosecute Russians through the Ukrainian judicial system, possibly in trials involving international judges.. The symbolic value of the tribunal in The Hague will be lost. In addition, only low-status Russians will sit in the dock, which will create the impression that we are talking about “punitive proceedings”. The second option is to allow the International Criminal Court to prosecute Russian war crimes and crimes against humanity, but not the crime of aggression, as this is outside the current competence of the court in the case of Russia. For this, it is enough that Ukraine recognizes the powers of the Hague Court, which has already begun to investigate Russian actions.. But few people believe that according to such a scenario, it will be possible to build a case against Putin.. In any event, the International Criminal Court does not hear cases against suspects in absentia..

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Ukraine prefers a plan that provides for the creation of a special tribunal in The Hague, which would exist separately from the International Criminal Court and could consider the case of the crime of aggression, and therefore persecute the Kremlin. However, The Economist writes that this is also unrealistic.. Worse, it could discredit the International Criminal Court in prosecuting international aggression in the future, explained Olivier Corten, professor of international law at the Free University of Brussels.. Sending war criminals to the International Criminal Court, while not providing the desired big prize, whatever the prosecution of Putin would be, would still be more than just a symbol. Any of those who are threatened with getting into The Hague - Russian generals or commanders of the Wagner group - will not dare to ever leave Russia, fearing that they will be sent to court. This will be some kind of punishment..

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The Economist writes that in such a case, if the international community cannot punish Putin for the crime of aggression, it should redouble its efforts to ensure that this crime does not do any good.. In particular, it could give Zelensky more of the weapons and money needed to defeat the invaders..