Public Lecture on the future of international criminal justice - Judge Sir Howard Morrison

27 February, 2024

5-7pm

PCL048 - Hogan Lovells Lecture Theatre, Durham Law School

Since 24 February 2022, Russia - a permanent member of the UN Security Council - and its President, Vladimir Putin, have been committing an act of aggression against the sovereign state of Ukraine, in clear violation of international law. Another permanent member, The People's Republic of China, has since consistently failed to rebuke Russia and tacitly supported it, as have a large number of countries of the so-called Global South. Concerns have been raised about the collapse of the rule-based world order, and of the United Nations becoming an obsolete debating club. Russia's and China's stance in particular has increased the fear of many people of a new Cold War, or even an actual armed confrontation between them and NATO. Calls for holding those responsible to account within the framework of international criminal justice threaten to fall foul of the new geopolitical environment and simple jurisdictional issues: The International Criminal Court has no jurisdiction over the crime of aggression committed in Ukraine because Russia is not a state party to the Court's Statute. A separate ad-hoc tribunal to try Putin and others may well fail due to the lack of consensus in the wider international community. Some say that it borders on illusion to think that Putin will ever face justice before any court.

Against this background, Sir Howard Morrison, one of the globally most experienced international criminal lawyers, will discuss the role that international criminal law can still play when faced with the crimes of the leadership of powerful states.