Breaking ! Putin may not outrun the warrant for his arrest – history shows that several leaders on the run eventually face charges in court

The Russian government, U.S. President Joe Biden and mainstream Western media are among the observers who all responded to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s arrest warrant for war crimes with a shrug.

In March 2023, the International Criminal Court announced the warrant for Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, because they allegedly directed the abduction of Ukrainian children. The court says that these charges amount to war crimes.

While Biden said the arrest warrant was “justified,” he also noted that the International Criminal Court “is not recognized by us either.”

The skeptics have a point – the ICC, based in the Hague, Netherlands, does not have its own police force to execute its orders and must rely on other countries’ police to arrest the people it indicts.

Indeed, there are a number of barriers potentially preventing Putin’s arrest.

One is that Russia, like the United States, is not a member of the court – so as long as Putin does not set foot in a country that is a member of the court, he is safe from arrest. Putin also remains popular within Russia and is unlikely to soon be overthrown and turned over by his successor.

But it still would be rash to assume that Putin is safe from the court’s grasp.

I am a scholar of criminal justice who specializes in international courts and the creativity that prosecutors show in catching their targets, often under very difficult political circumstances.

History shows that it would require a little bit of good luck for prosecutors – and a few bad decisions by Putin – for the Russian autocrat to end up in handcuffs. But it’s far from impossible.

How international courts work

A group of 60 countries established the International Criminal Court in 2002 to prosecute people who commit the worst crimes, including genocide and wartime sexual violence, that violate international law. The court is part of a long line of international criminal tribunals going back to the military tribunal the U.S. and allies set up to prosecute Nazis at the end of World War II, as part of the Nuremberg Trials.

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