Opinion | 'The evidence is overwhelming that Russia targeted civilian sites with widespread air and artillery barrages, indiscriminately hitting a train station, schools, churches, hospitals, and theaters.'
The body of a civilian, whose cause of death is unknown, lays on a stretcher on a path being used as an evacuation route out of Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, March 12, 2022. Kyiv northwest suburbs such as Irpin and Bucha have been enduring Russian shellfire and bombardments for over a week prompting residents to leave their homes.
In this digital age of cell phones and video recordings of these atrocities, sufficient evidence with photos, interviews, and documentation is available, based upon investigative reporters’ findings, intelligence available to the U.S. and its allies, and information gathered by Ukraine, international organizations, and NGOs.
Under the 1948 Treaty on Genocide, the crime of “genocide” requires showing of intent to destroy, “in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.” While the egregious crimes in Ukraine have indeed been horrific, they do not meet the definition of “genocide,” and President Zelensky’s calling Russia’s actions as “genocide” was a political statement, not having the legal meaning.
National courts that are authorized under their laws to exercise universal jurisdiction can also try war crimes and crimes against humanity, no matter where they occur or by whom committed. For example, German courts have recently prosecuted some accused from Syria. A hybrid international court, set up jointly by a nation with the United Nations, such as the special tribunal for Cambodia, is another possibility.
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