Advertisement 1

'Good laws have to be implemented'

Article content

A set of guidelines, known as the Nuremberg Principles, were created by the UN’s International Law Commission at the end of the Second World War. They were first utilized during the Major War Criminals Trials that began November 20, 1945 and ended October 1, 1946. Of the 24 Nazis indicted, 12 were sentenced to death by hanging, one in absentia, and the rest given prison sentences ranging from 10 years to life behind bars. Ten went to the noose on October 16, 1946. Remarkably, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring managed to cheat the hangman by taking a cyanide pill, the night before.

Advertisement 2
Story continues below
Article content

In May 1988, in Brussels, I had the privilege of spending time in the company of the late professor Col. Gerald Draper, where I appeared as a witness before the International Commission of Inquiry into the 1932-1933 Famine. Later I was a guest at his home in England. One of the first Allied officers to arrive at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Col. Draper later served as a prosecutor at Nuremberg and then at other war crimes trials from 1945-1949. Among his trying tasks was the interrogation of SS-Obersturmbannführer  Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz. Höss was later hanged, at Auschwitz, April 16, 1947. The gallows beam used for the purpose was still there when I ventured to set foot in this corner of hell on earth.

Advertisement 3
Story continues below
Article content
Article content

I remember Draper as a knightly man of faith, remarkably insightful, as someone who, as professor Michael Bothe pointed out in reviewing the now-hard-to-find book, The Selected Works on the Laws of War by the late professor Colonel G.I.A.D. Draper, OBE : “was a realist who knew that it was not enough to make good laws: they had to be implemented.” I cannot pretend to know what Draper might think about the behaviour of Vladimir Putin, the president-in-perpetuity of the Russian ‘Federation,’ but he would, I feel sure, still endorse the Nuremberg Principles he played no small role in shaping.

Crimes punished under international law include Crimes Against Peace, namely:

(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;

Advertisement 4
Story continues below
Article content

(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).

No serious student of international relations disputes that, in February 2014, the Russian military invaded and illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimea, subsequently staging a Nazi-like ‘referendum’ in this occupied territory. Aside from a few pariah states (e.g. North Korea, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela) the international community does not recognize Russia’s occupation of Ukraine’s Crimea, whose indigenous Tatar population have been subjected to widespread human rights abuses. In March 2014 Russian troops and local enablers invested eastern Ukraine, starting a war of aggression that continues to this day, with thousands killed. On July 17, 2014 the Russians even shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 17, murdering 298, mostly Dutch, civilians. A Canadian, Andrei Anghel, was also on board, flying to Bali for a vacation with his German girlfriend, Olga Ioppa: the lives of these two promising students of medicine were snuffed out.

Advertisement 5
Story continues below
Article content

Many others have been made victims at Putin’s command. Writing for The Washington Post , in 2017, David Filipov reported on some of them, including Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist with Novaya Gazeta assassinated on October 7, 2006 – apparently her book, Putin’s Russia, exposing how that country was being turned into a police state, was not on the KGB man in the Kremlin’s favourite reading list. And then there was Boris Nemtsov, shot in the back, four times, February 27, 2015, after protesting Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. He was killed within sight of the Kremlin yet his killer remains at large, despite Putin’s dubiously sincere claim about assuming ‘personal control’ of the investigation. No wonder U.S. President Joe Biden recently described Putin as a ‘killer.’

Advertisement 6
Story continues below
Article content

Now it’s indisputable Vladimir Putin was president of the Russian Federation in 2014, when the war against Ukraine was launched. His reign won’t end soon. In July 2020, having ruled for more than 20 years, Putin re-arranged Russian affairs to ensure he stays in office until 2036. He’ll be 83 by then. If he makes it, history will record that he held onto power even longer than Stalin.

Being president doesn’t, however, protect Putin. Anyone who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law, even if they did so as a head of state, is not relieved from responsibility. Since it seems fairly evident that Putin has committed more than one such crime, he should be apprehended whenever he next leaves his imperial domains. Once in custody he must then get a fair trial, based on the evidence and law. And he has the right to offer a defence. As one of the richest men in the world (a billionaire, remarkable in and of itself given his modest KGB pension, even topped up with his presidential salary) he can afford the best legal team out there. Perhaps he will even call Viktor Yanukovych as a character witness. Moscow’s satrap, this former president of Ukraine was deposed during the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution. Subsequently, he absconded to Russia, taking up Russian citizenship. So he should be available, although Viktor may be reluctant to show since he’s also wanted on charges of murder.

Once Putin has had a fair trial, justice should be done, just as it was with his Nazi predecessors, 75 years ago. Good laws, after all, have to be implemented.

Lubomyr Luciuk is a professor at the Royal Military College of Canada.

Article content
Comments
You must be logged in to join the discussion or read more comments.
Join the Conversation

Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.

Latest National Stories
    News Near Pembroke
      This Week in Flyers