Ukraine, lawyer Verni: “War crimes must be punished, long and difficult process”

Crimes must be “prosecuted and the perpetrators punished harshly, even if it will be a long and very difficult process”. This was stated to Adnkronos by the lawyer Marco Valerio Verni, head of the ‘Online Defense’ Law area, talking about the conflict in Ukraine and the violations of international humanitarian law. “Once a conflict has broken out, regardless of their responsibilities in this regard, all the parties involved in it will still be required to comply with certain rules, so much so that it is the party who attacked, as well as whether it is the attacked party – premieres l ‘Avvocato Verni – Having said that, assuming that the general rule is that only those belonging to the regular forces of the opposing States can be involved in the relative war operations, as long as, by surrender or because, perhaps, wounded, they decide not to take part anymore to hostilities, and only the military objectives affected, in the conflict in question the specific violations would seem different: from the killing of civilians (which resulted in the macabre discovery, apparently, of mass graves), to the destruction of their goods, to the bombing of asylums and hospitals, sexual violence, the use of prohibited weapons, looting, starving the population, to name but a few “. “The use of the conditional is a duty because, beyond the opposing propaganda, it will then be up to the various jurisdictions (national and international) to ascertain what has happened”, observes the lawyer Verni giving some examples: “If, in general, it is certainly forbidden, and therefore a crime, to bomb a school or a hospital, even more so if with people inside, everything could take on a different connotation if it were ascertained that, in an equally prohibited manner, there were no civilians inside them, but of enemy soldiers, and that those places were used as logistical bases “. If it is true, continues the lawyer, “that the civilian population cannot be the object of military actions, it is equally true that it, in turn, must not participate in hostilities, unless it organizes itself into resistance corps whose members comply with the requirements of membership, visibility and respect for international humanitarian law, and being considered, at that point, legitimate combatants in all respects. One thing is certain: if crimes have been committed, and unfortunately, inevitably, this happens in every war, they must be prosecuted and the authors severely punished, even if it will be a long and very difficult process “. On the possible path to an indictment of Russian President Vladimir Putin, lawyer Verni underlines: “The Chief of the Prosecutor’s Office of the International Criminal Court has already begun to collect useful material for evidential purposes, to bring the Russian president to trial, but the road is not at all easy, on the contrary: there are several technical obstacles to be faced, from the consequences deriving from the question on the jurisdiction of the Court itself (neither Russia nor Ukraine have joined the Treaty establishing the same, although the second, with two declarations of 2014 and 2015, has substantially accepted its competence to investigate any crimes committed in its territory starting from 20 February 2014 and without a final time limit), to the fact that, in front of it, no judgment can take place ‘in default, ie in the absence of the accused on duty “. “In this case, it would be Putin, but obviously it would be necessary to arrest him, which, at least at the moment, seems quite difficult. Ukraine, in violation of the United Nations Charter – he observes – But if we enter, then, within the sphere of the internal law of the conflict, for what I said before, the investigations should be carried out in the round, however unpleasant it may perhaps seem , to most, such a statement “. “In any case, in addition to the aforementioned Court – concludes the lawyer – they will be able to express themselves, each in their respective fields and profiles, also the European one of human rights, and the international one of justice. But, in all cases, the times they will be long and the related activities will certainly be very difficult. On the other hand, it is certainly not clear now that even international justice had limits “.