March 17, 202305:14
The problem is that the ICC has no real power to require countries to fulfill their responsibilities as party states, said Victor Peskin, a professor in the school of politics and global studies at Arizona State University and a human rights researcher. The court can find a state noncompliant, but it’s not much more than “a symbolic reprimand,” he told NBC News.
“When you have states that are legally obligated to help with that enforcement and they refuse to do so or promise to refuse to do so, then the ICC is really bereft of meaningful tools to hold that state accountable for not complying,” he said.
The United States does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction, but it has sought to publicly throw its weight behind the warrant. Russian leaders, though, have dismissed and mocked the war crimes charges.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov immediately rejected the court’s warrant last Friday. “We do not recognize this court, we do not recognize the jurisdiction of this court. This is how we treat this,” he said.
Since then, Russia has claimed ICC prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan and the court’s judges had broken the country’s laws and opened criminal cases against them.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev also made clear Thursday that if any countries acted on the arrest warrant, it would effectively be “a declaration of war against the Russian Federation,” which he emphasized was a nuclear state.
