US House of Representatives calls for creation of special tribunal to bring Russia to justice

The Committee on Foreign Affairs of the US House of Representatives of Congress voted for a resolution calling on the President of the United States to support the creation of a special tribunal to punish Russia for the crime of aggression against Ukraine.

The Voice of America reports that one of the resolution's authors, the Democratic Congressman Bill Keating, stressed while presenting it to the committee members that it's one of the documents crucial to both domestic and international efforts to hold the Russian government accountable for human rights violations.

"I personally believe that an international ad hoc tribunal, established by a majority vote of the United Nations General Assembly, gives legitimacy and authority to the tribunal," Keating said.

The chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, Republican Congressman Michael McCall, said that before the resolution was adopted, the congress members had the opportunity to listen to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Andrii Kostin, and also to see with their own eyes the war crimes of the Russian Federation.

"So I think a special tribunal is appropriate," McCall said.

In the resolution, the congressmen emphasize Russia's violation of the articles of the UN Charter and stress that "the Russian Federation's unprecedented full-scale invasion of Ukraine has reached a critical point requiring immediate and decisive action by the international community."

According to the resolution, the House of Representatives:

• strongly condemns the full-fledged invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine;
• supports the people of Ukraine in their struggle for freedom, independence, and democracy;
• emphasizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders;
• believes that there is strong evidence that individual leaders of the Russian Federation are guilty of committing the crime of aggression against Ukraine, and this requires a proper judicial decision by the international community;
• recognizes the need to create a special tribunal in the case of the crime of aggression against Ukraine;
• identifies the agreement between Ukraine and the UN after a favorable vote by the UN General Assembly as one of the options for creating such an international tribunal;
• and calls on the US president to take all available measures to support the creation of a special tribunal for crimes of aggression against Ukraine.

We will remind you that the new decisions of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in January, for the first time, detail and outline a special tribunal to punish Russia for the crime of aggression. This quite symbolic body was proposed to be created in The Hague.