Ukraine-Russia: Putin’s visit to Mongolia defies ICC arrest warrant as the world looks on

Ruth GreenMonday 30 September 2024

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent state visit to Mongolia didn’t happen behind closed doors. In fact, Mongolia appeared to roll out the red carpet for the Russian leader in Ulaanbaatar, the country’s capital, on 3 September as soldiers on horseback and military anthems filled the city’s Genghis Khan Square to welcome his arrival. 

But the fanfare struck a jarring note with the international community. Putin’s visit, which was at Mongolia’s invitation, marked the first time the Russian President had visited a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC) since it issued him with an arrest warrant in March 2023.

Justice Richard Goldstone, Honorary President of the IBA’s Human Rights Institute, agrees that Mongolia’s failure to arrest Putin signifies a ‘flagrant breach of its international obligations’ under the Rome Statute, which the country signed in 2000. 

However, Goldstone says the ICC, like other international courts, is powerless to force member states to comply with its decisions, even – as in this instance – when they fail to execute an arrest warrant issued by the Court. ‘In the case of the ICC, there is no authority with the power to enforce its decisions,’ says Goldstone. ‘It is ultimately only public opinion and the reputation of the States Parties that can lead states to comply with their international law obligations.’ 

This isn’t the first time a state visit by the Russian president to an ICC member has provoked such an outcry. In 2023, South Africa was plunged into a domestic and international diplomatic crisis over Putin’s expected attendance at the annual summit for BRICS – the intergovernmental organisation comprising Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Russia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates – in Johannesburg that August. In the end, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov went in the President’s place after the two countries reportedly came to a mutually negotiated agreement. 

This outcome suggests the ICC arrest warrant did have an impact on this occasion, says Aloka Wanigasuriya, an assistant professor in the Department of Law at the University of Southern Denmark. ‘At least on that occasion, the presence of the ICC arrest warrant appeared to have a deterrent effect on [Putin’s] travel plans,’ she says. 

The BRICS controversy also had worrying echoes of South Africa’s previous failure to arrest former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir during an African Union summit in Johannesburg in 2015 while he was under an ICC arrest warrant. The ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber subsequently ruled that the country had violated international and domestic legal obligations. Despite South Africa’s threats to withdraw from the Court, in the end it stayed and faced no repercussions. 

In Mongolia’s case, while Wanigasuriya cautions that ‘the most prudent avenue’ would have been for the country not to invite the Russian President on an official state visit, she says the situation illustrates the complex challenge of ensuring member states uphold their international legal obligations to the Court. ‘What it highlights is just how reliant the ICC is on states to cooperate with the Court – especially given that the Court does not have its own police force or other enforcement mechanism,’ she says. ‘It also shows how realpolitik can collide with treaty obligations.’

It was always going to be a significant geopolitical ask for a country such as Mongolia to execute an arrest warrant on neighbouring Russia, on which it still relies heavily for fuel, oil and electricity. Energy cooperation – including development of the planned ‘Power of Siberia 2’ pipeline, which will traverse though Mongolia and connect Russia to China – was expected to be a priority area for discussion during the talks in Ulaanbaatar, which coincided with celebrations of the 85th anniversary of the Soviet-Mongolian victory over Japan at the Battle of Khalkhin Gol. 

A Mongolian government spokesperson has highlighted this energy dependence, stating that ‘Mongolia imports 95% of its petroleum products and over 20% of electricity from our immediate neighbourhood, which have previously suffered interruption for technical reasons. This supply is critical to ensure our existence and that of our people’. The spokesperson added that ‘Mongolia has always maintained a policy of neutrality in all its diplomatic relations, as demonstrated in our statements of record to date.’

Mongolia has earned plaudits for its recent efforts to seek democratic and legal reforms, but this diplomatic debacle could undermine its position as a democratic role model in the region. 

During Putin’s visit, the Russian President reportedly invited Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh to the next BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, in October. Mongolia also remains China’s largest trade partner, and both countries have notably abstained from UN votes condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Mongolia’s transgression also comes as Ukraine is poised to join the ICC after President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a new law in August to ratify the Rome Statute. In a statement issued on X, formerly Twitter, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi described Mongolia’s failure to arrest Putin during the trip to Ulaanbaatar as a ‘heavy blow to the International Criminal Court and the international criminal justice system’. 

Wanigasuriya says it’s possible the ICC could now make a ‘determination of non-cooperation’ against Mongolia and refer the matter to the Assembly of State Parties, which would decide on what further action, if any, to take. However, in lieu of a judicial determination of non-cooperation, she concedes it’s ‘doubtful’ there will be any ‘real repercussions’ for Mongolia.

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