15/8/2025–|Last update: 18:14 (Mecca time)
Newsweek magazine said that the summit planned today, Friday, between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump in Alaska, raised a controversial question: Can Putin be arrested upon arrival at American territory based on the Memorandum of the International Criminal Court?
The magazine stated in a report by the correspondent of political affairs, Jesus Maysa, that Putin’s visit, scheduled today, is the first of its kind in a decade, which led to calls on social media and demands from experts to arrest the Russian president, but American and international law does not obligate Washington to work with the court’s memo.
What did the International Criminal Court accuse Putin?
“Newsweek” added that, on March 17, 2023, the court issued arrest warrants against Putin and the Russian Children’s Rights, Maria Luva Bilova, accusing them of deporting children from occupied Ukrainian regions to Russia, which are classified as war crimes.
The accusations are claimed that Putin either directly ordered the deportation or failed to prevent him as president of the Fova Belova, explaining the magazine.
According to the report, US law does not grant any basis to the arrest of Putin, as the United States signed in 2000 on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, but it did not believe it, then President George W. Bush announced in 2002 his country’s full withdrawal from the agreement.
Why will the United States not arrest Putin?
The magazine explained that the successive American administrations from Barack Obama and even Joe Biden have kept the country outside the court’s powers, while Trump went further by imposing sanctions on its officials and publicly questioning its international legitimacy.
According to the report, Russia, in turn, rejected the court’s decision, and considered the memorandum politicized, and threatened symbolic reprisals, and indicated that Moscow and Washington do not recognize the authority of the court that is based in The Hague.
Who are the members of the International Criminal Court?
The magazine explained that 125 countries joined the court until the mid -2025, including all the countries of South America and most of Europe and half of Africa, while several countries, including the United States, Russia, China and Israel, are absent.
She stated that the court lacks its own executive arm, and relies on its members to implement the arrests and hand over the wanted men voluntarily, while non -member states – such as the United States and Russia – are not obligated to cooperate with the courts’ orders.
It is important to the court’s authority that its judicial jurisdiction can extend beyond the member states, because the main system of Rome grants the Security Council – according to the United Nations Charter – the authority to refer the atrocities committed in any member state or a non -member in the court to the legal body for investigation, but the magazine does not prefer this to happen for political reasons.
Levantine leaders
The report stated that this pattern of “negligence” recently reduced the prestige of the court, noting that in November 2024, it issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Joav Galant, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
According to the report, Netanyahu continued his visits to member states of the court without being arrested, and he did not face any legal procedures during his visit to the state of Hungary this year, and the country’s Prime Minister, Victor Urban, announced that the arrest warrant “has no effect”, and later revealed his country’s intention to withdraw from the court.
(Tagstotranslate) Politics (T) Ukraine (T) (T), USA (T) Russia