Under the founding treaty of the court, the Rome Statute, ICC members are obligated to detain suspects for whom an arrest warrant has been issued by the court if they enter their territory.
Mongolia, which signed the Rome Statute in 2000 and ratified it in 2002, is a resource-rich country located in East Asia, landlocked between Russia and China, with a vast territory (three times the size of continental France). However, it has only 3.4 million inhabitants. The Kremlin, which has previously emphasized that it does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction, has not commented on the possibility of Putin being detained in Mongolia.
According to the Kremlin’s online statement, Putin will travel to Mongolia at the invitation of President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh “to participate in the ceremonial events dedicated to the 85th anniversary of the joint victory of the Soviet and Mongolian armed forces over the Japanese militarists at the Khalkhin Gol River.”
Vladimir Putin and Ukhnaa Khurelsukh “will exchange views on current international and regional issues,” the Russian Presidency added, stating that “several bilateral documents” will be signed on that occasion. The Russian president last visited Mongolia in September 2019.
Peskov added that “all aspects of the visit have been carefully prepared”.
ICC urges Mongolia to execute arrest warrant
“State Parties to the Rome Statute of the ICC are obliged to cooperate in accordance with Chapter IX of the Rome Statute, while non-State Parties may choose to cooperate on a voluntary basis.”, the court noted.
In case of non-cooperation, “ICC judges may make a finding to that effect” and communicate it to the Assembly of State Parties, which will then take “appropriate measures”.
It was the first time that the global court issued a warrant against a leader of one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.
The ICC stated in a statement that Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of illegal deportation of (children) and the illegal transfer of (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
The Kremlin rejected the warrant as “null and void.”
Since then, Putin has not made any trips to ICC member countries. Putin skipped a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies last year in South Africa.
The Russian president visited China last May, North Korea in June, and Azerbaijan in mid-August. None of these countries is an ICC member.
South Africa pressured Moscow for months to ensure that Putin would not participate, in order to avoid diplomatic repercussions, since the country is an ICC member, and eventually announced that the countries had reached a “mutual agreement” for Putin not to attend a meeting he is typically present at.
The International Criminal Court has no enforcement mechanism. In a famous case, the then-Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir was not detained in 2015 when he visited South Africa, which is an ICC member, provoking furious condemnation from human rights activists and the main opposition party in the country. The Kremlin reported that Putin had decided not to attend in person. Instead, he participated in the Johannesburg summit via video link, during which he delivered a speech against the West.
Last year, the Kremlin also expressed anger towards Armenia, a longtime ally, for its decision to join the ICC, increasing the growing tensions between Moscow and Yerevan. However, Armenian authorities quickly sought to reassure Russia that Putin would not be detained if he entered the country.