Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

ICC judges issue arrest warrants against Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova

icc-cpi.int

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 69 posts

Re: ICC judges issue arrest warrants against Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova

#3

Post by sgjohnson »

A completely meaningless and symbolic gesture.

I don't think Putin is in a hurry to surrender himself to the ICC, and nobody is going to arrest him overseas, because as a head of state he has a total diplomatic immunity.

Full disclosure: I'm fully in support of Ukraine in this Russian-expansionist war. However this is just a cold hard fact. Me pointing it out in no way whatsoever even suggests that I'm pro-russian. Which I'm absolutely not.

Re: ICC judges issue arrest warrants against Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova

#4

Post by actinium226 »

As a theoretical exercise, does anyone know what the punishment for these crimes would be? Of course we'll never see a trial, but I'm just curious, if it were to happen in some parallel universe, what would they get? A couple years in jail? Life?

Re: ICC judges issue arrest warrants against Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova

#6

Post by dsfyu404ed »

sgjohnson wrote: post #3

A completely meaningless and symbolic gesture. I don't think Putin is in a hurry to surrender himself to the ICC, and nobody is going to arrest him overseas, because as a head of state he has a total diplomatic immunity. Full disclosure: I'm fully in support of Ukraine in this Russian-expansionist war. However this is just a cold hard fact. Me pointing it out in no way whatsoever even suggests that I'm pro-russian. W…

If the goal is to give Russia maximum incentive to f-off this is not what you want to be doing.

This moves the current situation further down the spectrum from "minor expansionist war we can pull out of and keep our heads on our bodies" and closer toward "potential existential crisis" from the point of view of Putin and his close buddies.

The ICC is basically saying to Putin that any future successor can earn a few (more than they already would) brownie points with the west (or at least the parts of it that have the most interest alignment with the ICC) by turning him in. In practice this does nothing other than make Putin less likely (not that he was very likely to begin with) to ever voluntarily relinquish office except on his deathbed (see also: Fidel Castro).

Putin eventually stepping down in favor of someone who will at least marginally improve relations with the west (not hard to imagine, over the years plenty of dictators have given up power to "moderate" successors in order to head off potential power struggles) would be good. This makes that marginally less likely (not that it was particularly likely in the sort/medium term).

Edit: INB4 someone inevitably tries to construe any of this as being pro-russia, it's not.

Re: ICC judges issue arrest warrants against Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova

#7

Post by meghan_rain »

sgjohnson wrote: post #3

A completely meaningless and symbolic gesture. I don't think Putin is in a hurry to surrender himself to the ICC, and nobody is going to arrest him overseas, because as a head of state he has a total diplomatic immunity. Full disclosure: I'm fully in support of Ukraine in this Russian-expansionist war. However this is just a cold hard fact. Me pointing it out in no way whatsoever even suggests that I'm pro-russian. W…

> he has a total diplomatic immunity

He doesn't, because he committed war crimes. Simple as.

Re: ICC judges issue arrest warrants against Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova

#10

Post by timdiggerm »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #6
sgjohnson wrote: post #3

A completely meaningless and symbolic gesture. I don't think Putin is in a hurry to surrender himself to the ICC, and nobody is going to arrest him overseas, because as a head of state he has a total diplomatic immunity. Full disclosure: I'm fully in support of Ukraine in this Russian-expansionist war. However this is just a cold hard fact. Me pointing it out in no way whatsoever even suggests that I'm pro-russian. W…

If the goal is to give Russia maximum incentive to f-off this is not what you want to be doing. This moves the current situation further down the spectrum from "minor expansionist war we can pull out of and keep our heads on our bodies" and closer toward "potential existential crisis" from the point of view of Putin and his close buddies. The ICC is basically saying to Putin that any future successor can earn a few (…

>not that he was very likely to begin with

I feel like this is over-stating the previous likelihood

Post reply on HN