Arrest Warrant for Putin Over War Crimes

Joe Biden agrees that Putin has committed war crimes. H I think it's justified this, But the question is it's not recognized internationally by US either. But I think it makes a very strong points of lad war crimes in Ukraine's perfect matter. Joining me is an expert in international criminal law, Patrick Keenan, a professor at the University of Illinois College of Law. This is the first time the ICC has ever indicted a leader of a permanent member

of the UN Security Council. What's the immediate effect of this arrest warrant for Putin? I think the immediate effect is mostly symbolic. This signals to the world that Putin is an accused war criminal, and I think it will have some symbolic effect. I think the immediate practical effect is that it limits Putin's ability to travel outside of Russia or territory that Russia controls, either directly or indirectly.

So I think the symbolic effect is more important. I don't think Putin was planning to travel to ICC member states anytime soon, but I think it does have that practical effect. This weekend he made his first trip outside of Russia since the warrant, and he went to marry Opel, the Ukrainian city that Russia destroyed. Do you think this was an act of defiance in relation to the warrant or didn't have anything to do with it. That's hard

for me to say. I think one thing that we know about Putin is that he is, at least to my eyes, somewhat unpredictable and really not concerned with international public opinion. It certainly seems to me like an act of defiance, but it was kind of a weak active defiance. The ICC, as you know, doesn't have a police force, so it can't go out and execute these arrest warrants. So Putin knows as long as he's in Russia or in a territory that Russia controls, then he's not going

to be arrested. So it may look like he is being defiant in a significant way by leaving Russia, but he knew that he wasn't going to risk arrest, so it's kind of a weak act of defiance if it is an active defiance at all. Describe the warrant for us what it accuses him and another Russian official love. So it accuses Putin and Maria Levova Belova of the war crime of unlawfully deporting and transporting children from occupied

Ukraine into Russia. It's illegal under international law and under the laws of war for an occupying power, in this case Russia, to deport the local population or to transfer that local population from where they are originally to another place, either within Ukraine or to Russia. The specifics of this alleged that they are working on have been working on a program of illegally transporting children from occupied Ukraine into Russia.

And so this is a war crime, and it can also be charged as a way to commit genocide, but in this instance it was charged as two separate war crimes. It's essentially the same conduct, just charged under two different provisions of the ICC Statute. I think it's significant that it's charged as a war crime and not as a way to commit genocide, because war crimes in this instance,

at least, are somewhat more straightforward charge. The prosecution would have to show that these acts occurred, so the transfer of children, and I think there's substantial evidence of that, and that it's taken place in the context of an

armed conflict, which is also pretty straightforward. For genocide. To charge these same conduct as genocide, the prosecution would have to show that this was done with an intent to destroy in whole or in part the Ukrainian people, and I think that's the law has evolved in a way to make that a somewhat more difficult proposition. Are these children who are orphans or were they taken from their parents? Do we know, like what children he's taken to Russia?

We don't, or at least I don't. There has been some good documentation of this from non governmental organizations. Columbia Universe City has some investigation of this, and some other non governmental organizations have and it appears, at least from the reporting that I've seen, and again is not something

I've looked at on the ground. Is that some of these children may be orphans, Some maybe children who have been separated from their parents during the war, and some are children who have and know the whereabouts that their parents. So Russia has kind of tried to argue that this is a humanitarian endeavor, so they're moving orphans from Ukraine to Russia to be adopted. I think by charging this as a war crime, this is a way for the International Criminal Court to signal that no, this is not

a humanitarian project that Russia's engaged in. This is a war crime, pure and simple, against the most vulnerable people in times of war, and that is children. You mentioned the charges are narrow and conservative. Deporting civilians is an established war crime. So do you think I did it that way deliberately to make it straightforward and easier to win if it ever does go to court. I do, And I'm not sure about the easier to win part, But I think THEE shows these initial charges deliberately for

a couple of reasons. One is the lead defendant is putin. He's at the very top of the power structure in Russia, obviously, and he's the reason that the war is happening. He's the one who initiated the war, so he has significant power, almost complete control over whether there's going to be a

war and what the world will look like. So they're really going after the very top of the power structure, and this charge goes after the top of the power structure while also taking into account of harmstune to the most vulnerable people. So by going after the most powerful person and by accounting for the most vulnerable victim, I think this sends a really important symbolic message from the

ICC that they're investingation has been really thorough. It's determined that putin and the logo that there's reasonable grounds to believe that they're criminally responsible for these actions and that these are the most vulnerable victims. So I think the SEC is trying to fulfill its mission to hold accountable the people who are most responsible for international atrocity crimes. Russia Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakarova called the document legally worthless.

Decisions of the International Criminal Court have no value for our country, in particular from a legal point of view. I mean that is true, and the United States hasn't recognized the ICC, So how does that play into it. I think that's a good question as to whether the fact that Russia is not a member state of the ICEC, not a party to the Rome Statute, whether that means anything. So I think in this case it's a little more

complicated than saying this is legally irrelevant. First of all, if Putin travels to a country that's a member state of the ICC, and that country is willing to fulfill his duty, and that is to arrest Putin, to execute the icec's arrest warrant, then the Foreign Ministry spokesperson may think that this has no power, but they will have real power if he's arrested. I don't think that's likely, it's certainly in the short to medium term, but it's

possible later on. It's also possible that it's unlikely that Putin will be president of Russia forever, so I think after he's out of power, that may have some practical effect. I think also the way the law works has effects beyond just the immediate execution of the arrest warrant. So someone who's subject to an arrest warrant to travel is limited.

Their trading partners are going to be more hesitant. This may have effect domestically within Russia and the Russian opposition, either the people in the streets or people who are have been so far allies or sort of tentative allies Putin. People with a lot of resources and power. They may decide doing business with an accused war criminal is too cost but we want to do business with the rest

of the world. So I think it because there's the likelihood that this will have effects domestically, This can have effects in terms of Putin's travel. It's certainly not accurate to say this is irrelevant. It is true to say this arrest warrant will not be executed anytime soon, because Putin is unlikely to leave a safe territory until either the arrest warrant goes away or he's no longer president. The ICEC has only indicted fifty two people. Have any

of those indictments led to prosecutions trials? Yes, I sec has held the number of trials these trials, convictions, and in some cases acquittals. It's the robust system. It does work slowly, in part because look at the kinds of cases it takes on. It takes on enormous cases that have just tremendous amounts of evidence. There's just a mountain of evidence that the prosecution has to go through. So yes, I SEC cases have led to prosecutions, have led to convictions.

They've even led to guilty please in some cases, so there wasn't a trial, but there was a conviction and after the case, so when there is a prosecution that leads to conviction, then there's a reparations process, so the people accused can be held responsible for paying reparations or

providing for reparations to victims. So the SEC has indicted fifty odd people in the number of convictions is relatively low, but compared to the magnitude of the cases, I think the work rate it certainly isn't what I or most people wish that it was, but I think it's fairly substantial. So I know that they indicted Gadafi during the Libyan uprising. Do these indictments ever lead to leaders changing their behavior? Yes and no. It's first of all, it's hard to

stay for sure. So there have been two heads of state previously who were indicted, and so just to be clear, Putin has not been indicted so far. There's an arrest warrant, but not an indictment, so I don't want to misspeak. There've been two heads of state previously who were charged, and that was Lauren Bagbo from the Ivory Coast from an Albashir from Sudan, and Bagbo was eventually acquitted Albashir

it took a long time for anything to happen. Other states refused to execute the arrest warrant, so that was it became a very politicized case. So the SEC and the SEC also for a while at charges against two men who became leaders in Kenya. But the icec's track record of going after heads of state, I think is not a long one, and it shouldn't be. We shouldn't expect heads of state to be committing international crimes. I think this case is unique, so I'm not sure how

much the previous examples tell us. They tell us something about the legal status, but I don't know that they help us predict how this will turn out. The lead lawyer for the government of Ukraine, Ben Emerson, has said that this arrest warrant is like a first shot in what could be a substantial indictment against Putin. Do you

think he's correct? I do My read is that the first step in what will be a series of charges against both Putin and other Russian officials, and so in the future I would expect to see indictments for several things. So I think there is substantial evidence. There's the overwhelming evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine, and as a lawyer, I can't say for sure these have been entirely proven. So we've seen all the evidence

and the defenses presented. But based on the news reporting, there looks like there's substantial evidence of war crimes for targeting civilian and killing civilians. The separate war crimes for using weapons that are much too imprecise for the context. You can't use the weapons that cause wide indiscriminate destruction and populated areas even if you're not directly targeting civilians.

There have been war crimes and crimes against humanity relating to sexual violence against women and girls, and for torture and mistreatment of civilians and captured soldiers. Plus I would expect see a number of war crimes and crimes against humanity indictment. It's not clear to me yet whether there will be charges of genocide, genocide requires proof of the intent to destroy and whole or in parts of Ukrainian people, and I think the way the law has evolved has

made it complicated to prove that. I'm not saying that that hasn't happened, but just that as the legal matter, it might be difficult. So my best guess is there will be more indictments, maybe many more indictments. I have no inside information, but I would expect to see those, I would say in the short to medium term. So in the next three to six months. Does this offer any hope of Ukrainian families getting their children back? I mean, could there be some kind of deal may or is

that just not in the equation? My best guess is that it's not in the equation because it would require some acknowledgement by Russia that had done something wrong, and so far Putin has shown no inclination to acknowledge that any part of this is in any way wrong. These actions are clearly illegal, right from the build up to the invasion, to the invasion to the way that the

war has been conducted. So the laws clearly on one side, and Putin is kind of describing a reality that just doesn't exist when he's arguing in favor of the war, so I wouldn't want to raise the hopes of people who are desperately looking for hope for their children back.

There is one kind of small life of this that I think it hasn't gotten a lot of attention, and that is that unto the ICC rules, there's a little known provision in the ICC Statute that would allow the UN Security Council to suspend an ICC prosecution for twelve months in the interests of international He's in security and I'm not predicting this will happen, but I just want to describe it as a possibility, or note it as

a possibility. So what that means is the Security Council could say, ICC stand down for twelve months, and we'll use this twelve months to negotiate a peaceful ends in the situation, or maybe negotiate the return of the children who have been illegally deported and illegally transferred to Russia.

I'm curious to see whether any momentum develops behind that possibility. Again, I'm not predicting it, but I think that's the one place where I see at least the possibility that the indictment could lead to some kind of negotiation that could provide some hope. And I don't want to raise false hope, but I think that that's legally possible. And I'm curious to see whether any countries really want to step up and see if they can broke or something like that.

That would be wonderful. And why isn't the US a member of the ICC? So when the SEC was being created, the US was an active participant in drafting the statute. So the US, both official negotiators and people who were Americans just working on the issues, had substantial influence on

what the ICC statute looks like. There was a structure of the court and the crimes that are available in The Clinton administration wanted to join ICEC, or at least made some noise about joining the IEC, and then ultimately decided, And so the US is not a member of the International Criminal Court at this point, and I think it's

unlikely that it ever will. I think the reason behind that is that there is at least some fear on the part of US officials that US service members or US forces could end up being targets of prosecution by the ICC. The SEC has investigated the situation in Afghanistan, and indicated that there were reasons to believe that parts of the US operations in Afghanistan violated the ICC statute.

The defendants in those cases, they're not cases yet, but if they turned out to be indictments or a restaurants, those defendants would be US service members or US officials. So the US doesn't want to join the ICEC because it doesn't want to make that kind of thing any easier. And with respect to Ukraine, though the US has I think been more cooperative, more open to, and complementary of the ICC than it has been at any time in the recent past. Are there other areas for criminal charges

from the ICC in the Ukrainian invasion? The treatment of women and girls in this conflict has been achis and this is the case in every conflict, and so I would be interested to see if there are cases that the ICEC pursues that specifically prioritize the harms that affect

women and girls. And this is not a criticism of anyone, but I think we should all be paying more attention to the various ways that women and girls have been treated abominably, torture, crimes of sexual violence, and all manner of harm. So I think even though there has been reporting on this, if not enough, and we haven't really paid a close attention to that issue as we should. Those are substantial harms. They're still happening, and they should

lead to criminal charges. Thanks for speaking to this, Patrick, that's Professor Patrick Keenan of the University of Illinois College of Law. David Boys is a prominent litigator known for national cases from Microsoft to Bush, Fee, Gore, and Boys has been representing Jeffrey Epstein's victims pro bono for more than a decade. These were girls who were procured, transported across kept line of state lines. This was as commercial

a sex trafficking operation as you can imagine it. Now he's suing JP Morgan Chase on behalf of victim Jane Doe, accusing the bank of supporting Epstein's sex trafficking network. Ep Morgan has denied any knowledge of epstein sex trafficking, even though the bank, in turn has sued its former top executive, Jess Staley, accusing him of sexually assaulting one of Epstein's victims. Joining me is Bloomberg Legal reporter Eva Benny Morrison, Eva

tell Us about the nub of the plaintiff's case. In November last year, Jane Doe, who was a victim of Jeffrey Epstein, filed the lawsuit against JP Morgan, alleging at the bank facilitated and supported his sex trafficking network. Jane Doe alleges that by JP Morgan providing financial services to Epstein, it was part of his sex trafficking venture and it

benefited from it as well. He had millions and millions of dollars moving through multiple accounts for the bank, which would have attracted high fees, which they say goes to the financial benefitsit element of this case. The lawyer behind this lawsuit is rather famous. David Boys. Tell us about him. David Boys is probably one of the most well known litigators in America. He has been a lawyer for fifty plus years. He's worked on some major cases, including the

Microsoft antitrust case in the late nineties. He also has represented the victims of Jeffrey Epstein pro bono for more than a decade, and more controversially represented Harvey Weinstein and as the homes And. He's known for using hardball tactics no matter which side of the case he's on. Yes, he can be very aggressive, have a very aggressive sort of litigation style, which obviously has its supporters and its detractors. He really goes in hard in fighting for his clients.

He's caught it a little bit of controversy, I guess for doing that, especially in the Harvey Weinstein case, when his firm signed off on a contract with a private investigator to look into some of the men who were coming forward making allegations about Weinstein and some of the journalists who were trying to report it. But I guess on the other side, he's had huge success in obtaining settlements for his clients and having some big wins in court,

one of those against Prince Andrew. Explain how that came about, that's right. So this was part of the Epstein case. A victim of Jeffrey Epstein, a woman by the name of Virginia Dufray, was represented by Boys, and she alleged that Prince Andrew was one of the men who sexually assaulted her when she was working with Epstein. Epstein and Prince Andrew were friends, so on behalf of Virginia Boys

sued Prince Andrew and that settled out of court. Last year, just before Prince Andrew was meant to be deposed about what he knew about Epstein's trafficking. JP Morgan is asking a federal judge to throw out the case. What are its arguments? JP Morgan says that Jane Doe hasn't propped shown that the bank knew or should have known, what Epstein was doing in terms of sex trafficking. Epstein was

a client of JP Morgan between the late nineties. In two and thirteen, when the bank cut ties with him, Jane Doe was essentially saying that if they didn't have direct knowledge, then they ought to have known because there were so many red flags. Much of Jane Doo's case is centered around the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and a former executive at the bank, a man named Jeff Daley. There has been a lot of emails and details come out about how strong their friendship was, and it hasn't

reflected very well on Jeff Daley. JP Morgan has tried to say, yes, some of the conversations that he had on his work email with Epstein wit inappropriate, but they fell outside the scope of his employment, so they cannot be held responsible and as a bank, they didn't have a duty to non customers, meaning Jane Doo, and the

bank went from defending Staley to suing Staley. Yes. Initially, when this laws it was filed, JP Morgan had said that the allegations made against Daily were speculatives essentially and not properly supported by fats. That strategy change earlier this month when the bank actually filed its own lawsuit against Jess Daily, saying that if damages are awarded against the bank,

that he should be held liable for them. The banks also going after him to try and call back more than eighty million dollars it paid him during his time at JP Morgan, alleging that he was disloyal to the bank and he vouched for Epstein when they were trying to decide whether to keep him an honors a client and over his faithless service. How strong are the bank's arguments? How strong is its defense? I interviewed a few legal experts who said that the bank's defense was pretty strong

and they did make some solid arguments. There is a lot of case law around who the banks have a duty too, and some of that law has found that banks don't have a duty to non customers or heart be held responsible for the actions of their clients. So that's something that certainly works in JP Morgan's favor. Another massive hurdle for Jane Doe is trying to prove that what Staley knew about Epstein sex trafficking, JP Morgan knew, and that's sort of an extra step and that's going

to be a bit of a challenge. But a couple of the legal experts said, what's unusual about this case compared to other sex trafficking civil cases is that there is a lad of evidence and material suggesting that the bank ought to have known, so the emails, the huge amount of public reporting about Epstein's criminal investigations in Florida and elsewhere, So that might work in Jane Doo's dab here. And if the bank can't get this case thrown out, does it want to go to trial and be associated

with Epstein? No, is the short answer. I think that the reputational damage here is a real risk, and no big huge entity JP Morgan will want to take that risk, and they will try and stop it going to trial to avoid all of these fallacious details coming out EVA. JP Morgan is also being sued by the Virgin Islands

tell us about that suit. That's right. In a separate litigation, the US Virgin Islands file a similar suit against JP Morgan a couple of weeks after the Jane Doe suit late last year, US Virgin Islands alleges that JP Morgan all facilitated Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking. Jeffrey Epstein had a private island in the US Virgin Islands and that's where he allegedly abused a number of young women and traffic

number of young women as well. So JP Morgan is also putting up a fight to have that suit dismissed, and we're going to hear those arguments later in the week. It's hard to believe that so many years after Epstein's death, these cases are still being litigated and no sign of ending. After Gilain Maxwell was sentenced, there was a sort of feeling of finality. But the plaintiffs throughout this have been very focused on trying to hold the enablers of Epstein accountable.

They've been let down again and again by the criminal justice system. Jeoffrey Epstein got a non prostitution agreement force or sitting minus for prostitution federal chargers in Florida in two thousand and eight, and then, of course he was arrested more than a decade later, finally on sex trafficking charges,

and he committed suicide in a prison cell. So the plaintiffs in this case have really utilized the civil system in a bid to try and get some form of justice, and I think we're seeing a little bit of that at the moment, trying to hold those enablers accountable for allegedly turning a blind eye to what Estein was doing. Thanks either. That's Bloomberg Legal reporter Ava Benny Morrison. This is Bloomberg Law on Bloomberg Radio. I'm June Grosso.