| dc.description.abstract | There is a wide consensus that the aggression against Ukraine represents a continued violation of international law conspicuously displayed by Vladimir Putin and his henchmen. The aggression echoes a dereliction from safeguarding the United Nations’ raison d’être and infracts the very cornerstone of the modern international legal order, more specifically, the prohibition of the use of force. Sadly, Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine reinforces, yet again, that the international community provides a rather futile ground to bring the perpetrators of the crime against peace to account. Moreover, the invasion strengthens Russia’s longstanding reputation on the international arena, that of a transgressor.
Without a doubt, the prosecution of the crime of aggression for the first time during the Nuremberg trials marked a pivotal step for its periplus through the international arena. In the canon of criminal jurisprudence this momentous event occupies a conspicuous place. In light of this, the recurrent theme in the discussion about the Russian crime of aggression is how to hold Putin accountable for his wrongdoings. As the current thesis seeks to show, the road to accountability for the crime of aggression is, at least in the legal existing framework, impassable. There is no available mechanism that can enforce ius puniendi (the power to punish) over the crime of aggression. In light of this, in an attempt to close the loophole in the accountability framework for the crime that gives rise to all the other core crimes, several alternative accountability mechanisms have been put forward. At the heart of all these avenues lies the imperative of repudiating impunity by preventing Putin (and the others from the highest echelon of state authority) from escaping once again the tenets of accountability for the crime of aggression. | eng |