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Guest post by Jacqueline R. McAllister and Daniel Krcmaric
The International Criminal Court (ICC) shocked the world on March 17 by issuing arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova. The ICC indicated it has reasonable grounds to believe that each bears criminal responsibility for unlawfully deporting and transferring children from occupied Ukraine to Russia—considered war crimes under international law. Rather than starting its ongoing investigation in Ukraine with arrest warrants for “small fry” war criminals, the ICC rolled the dice by going after its most prominent target ever: Vladimir Putin. Often considered the “most powerful man in the world,” Putin is the first leader with a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council—and the first leader with an arsenal of nuclear weapons—to face an ICC arrest warrant.
What does all of this mean going forward? And how will the ICC arrest warrants influence the war in Ukraine?
It is important to start by managing expectations: Neither Putin nor Lvova-Belova is likely to land in the ICC’s dock anytime soon. Since the ICC does not have a police force, it relies on state cooperation for enforcement. Russia refuses to recognize the ICC, and it is inconceivable that Putin and Lvova-Belova will voluntarily turn themselves into the court. The road ahead for securing justice will be bumpy.
Nonetheless, the ICC’s arrest warrants may have several implications for the war, some negative, some positive.
In terms of negative implications, the ICC arrest warrants are unlikely to deter Russian forces from continuing to commit atrocities in Ukraine. In fact, they may perversely convince Russians to double down on their atrocity crimes. This may already be happening in Ukraine. During his surprise visit to Russian-occupied Mariupol after the warrants were announced, Putin thumbed his nose at the ICC by visiting a children’s center. Other Russian authorities have responded to the ICC arrest warrants by signaling that “more deportations are on the way.” Ukrainian civilians—the very people who have already borne the brunt of the war—may continue to suffer as their children are abducted and put on display in Red Square photo-ops and at concerts celebrating the war.
The ICC arrest warrants are also likely to make it harder for Ukraine and its Western allies to reach a negotiated settlement with Russia. The logistics of negotiating peace are more complex now that Putin is in the ICC’s sights. Will leaders in Western democracies be willing to negotiate directly with an accused war criminal? Might they insist that Putin be removed—as they did for other brutal leaders—as a precondition for meaningful negotiations? Will Putin be willing to travel abroad for a prospective peace conference? The ICC’s 123 member states now have a legal obligation to arrest him if he ever sets foot on their territory, making them undesirable sites for a peace conference. It is possible that China, fresh off its role in brokering a deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia, could play host. But China’s actions thus far have convinced Western officials that it would not be a neutral broker in Ukraine.
There are some positive implications, however. The arrest warrants could facilitate efforts to hold Putin and other top leaders criminally accountable. For example, following Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević’s indictment at the Yugoslav Tribunal, several of his key associates began sharing a wealth of much-needed evidence. As Yugoslav Tribunal Deputy Prosecutor Graham Blewitt explained in an interview with one of the authors, “Milošević opened up other areas of interest. Once he was indicted for Kosovo, we could then bring indictments for Bosnia and Croatia, because people talked to us. Some people were trying to do the right thing, and some people wanted to do deals.” In conjunction with military intelligence from Western governments, such testimony and documents linking top leaders to crimes proved crucial for prosecuting those who were previously beyond the Yugoslav Tribunal’s reach. It is possible that some in Putin’s inner circle could end up doing the same for the ICC.
If history is any indication, the ICC’s arrest warrants may also shore up support for Ukraine’s war effort, particularly from NATO. During the Kosovo War, the Yugoslav Tribunal’s indictment of Milošević helped to solidify support for NATO’s Operation Allied Force in Kosovo. Specifically, as NATO’s air campaign ground on with seemingly no end in sight, pressure mounted in Western capitals to bring hostilities to a close. In the face of such pressure, keeping the Alliance together posed a real challenge. The Milošević indictment, according to NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark, was “a huge win. Nothing was more likely to stiffen the Allies’ resolve and push us forward into a winning situation than this indictment.”
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine over a year ago, questions have persisted about whether NATO, the US, and European Union will sustain their crucial support for Ukraine’s war effort over the long haul. Indeed, Putin seems to be gambling that Ukraine’s supporters will eventually falter in their commitment to its cause. If NATO’s experience in Kosovo is any indication, the ICC’s arrest warrants might help Ukraine’s backers to keep calling Putin’s bluff.
Jacqueline R. McAllister is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Kenyon College and will join the State Department’s Office of Global Criminal Justice in 2023 as a Council on Foreign Relations fellow. Her research appears in leading scholarly and foreign affairs magazines. Daniel Krcmaric is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University and the author of The Justice Dilemma: Leaders and Exile in an Era of Accountability. He is currently writing a book about the turbulent relationship between the United States and the International Criminal Court.
Guest post by Meghan Garrity
January 30, 2023 marks 100 years since the signing of the Lausanne Convention—a treaty codifying the compulsory “population exchange” between Greece and Turkey. An estimated 1.5 million people were forcibly expelled from their homes: over one million Greek Orthodox Christians from the Ottoman Empire and 500,000 Muslims from Greece.
This population exchange was not the first such agreement, but it was the first compulsory exchange. Turkish nationals of the Greek Orthodox religion and Muslim Greek nationals did not have the option to remain. Further, Greek and Muslim refugees who had fled the Ottoman Empire and Greece, respectively, were not allowed to return to their homes. Only small populations in Istanbul and Western Thrace were exempted from the treaty.
The population exchange between Greece and Turkey is an example of the broader phenomenon of mass expulsion—a government policy to systematically remove an ethnic group without individual legal review and with no recognition of the right to return. Far from an isolated incident, the Lausanne Convention was one of 19 population “transfers” or “exchanges” throughout Europe in the early twentieth century. These expulsions occurred with the stroke of a pen, but mass expulsions also occur at the point of a sword. Governments use violence to force out “undesirable” groups by destroying their homes, appropriating their assets and income, and in some cases, killing members of the group to encourage others to flee.
Although mass expulsion is rare, it is recurring. Between 1900–2020, governments expelled over 30 million citizens and non-citizens in 139 different episodes around the world.
Far from a historical phenomenon, over the last 50 years governments have continued to implement expulsion policies at an average rate of 1.56 per year. In just the last two decades (from 2000–2020) there were 24 expulsion events, including Eritreans from Ethiopia (1998–99); Rohingya from Myanmar (2012–13; 2016–18); and Afghans from Pakistan (2016).
What explains this recurrence? In the early decades of the twentieth century, particularly after World War I, minority groups were seen as dangerous Trojan horses that sowed instability and brought insecurity. The “Great Powers” and international institutions like the League of Nations, promoted expulsion as a necessary policy to “unmix” antagonistic populations. It was believed that only by reuniting groups with their co-ethnics and establishing homogenous nation-states—however fanciful that idea was in practice—could international peace and security be achieved.
Therefore, in post-conflict environments mass expulsion was often considered a viable policy, typically disguised in the more benign-sounding language of population “transfer” or “exchange.” The 1923 Lausanne Convention was part of one such post-conflict peace agreement that ended the war between Greece and Turkey and redrew the borders of the soon-to-be Turkish Republic.
Notable figures such as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Herbert Hoover openly promoted and lobbied for mass expulsion. In 1942, in the midst of World War II, Czechoslovakia President-in-exile Edvard Beneš wrote in Foreign Affairs, “It will be necessary after this war to carry out a transfer of populations on a very much larger scale than after the last war. This must be done in as humane a manner as possible, internationally organized and internationally financed.” After the war, the Allied Powers carried out Beneš’ wish. The 1945 Potsdam Agreement authorized the “orderly and humane” expulsion of between nine and 12 million ethnic Germans from Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary.
But international norms and law slowly began to shift. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights included the right of nationals to return to their country of origin. The next year the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibited “individual or mass forcible transfers.” Protection for refugees soon followed with the 1951 Refugee Convention explicitly stating, “No contracting state shall expel or return (“refouler”) a refugee.” Subsequent regional human rights treaties bolstered legal frameworks against the expulsion of both nationals and non-nationals, including the European Convention on Human Rights, Protocol 4 (1963), American Convention on Human Rights (1969), African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981), and more recently the Arab Charter on Human Rights (2004). In 1998 the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court included “deportation or forcible transfer of populations” as Crimes Against Humanity.
Yet despite these legal advancements, mass expulsion persists. Although laws against expulsion are in place, there is minimal, if any, regional or international enforcement. In the face of myriad atrocities and human rights abuses, cases of mass expulsion are not prioritized. The limited international justice resources are dedicated to accountability for more heinous atrocities like genocide. Unfortunately, multiple rounds of mass expulsion may eventually escalate to more serious violence as in the case of the Rohingya in Myanmar: expelled in 1978, 1991–92, 2012–13, and 2016–18. Only this latest episode has been referred to the International Court of Justice amidst accusations of genocide.
Governments also hesitate to call out others for implementing expulsion policies because they too have expelled. In 1983 Nigeria expelled over two million West African migrants without any serious criticism from its regional neighbors. Affected countries like Ghana, Niger, and Chad had previously expelled populations from their territories, and thus refrained from condemning Nigeria.
Furthermore, while mass expulsion has continued over time, the nature of the person targeted has changed. In the first half of the twentieth century, mass expulsions almost exclusively targeted citizens. Since 1950, only 12 incidents of citizen-only expulsions have occurred, which at first glance seems to indicate the customary international law against expelling citizens has diffused around the world. But, on the contrary, expelling states have simply modified their strategy by removing citizens simultaneously with non-citizens—foreign nationals, resident aliens, and/or refugees. When non-citizens are the main target of expulsion, these decisions are often considered “immigration policies” under the sovereign jurisdiction of the state. However, international law also guarantees the protection of non-nationals from mass expulsion and requires certain rules to be followed, including non-discrimination and individual legal review. The en masse removal of groups based on identity characteristics is illegal.
Mass expulsion, in whatever form it takes, has gross humanitarian consequences for those affected. In the chaos families are separated, homes and livelihoods are left behind, and in some cases, lives are lost. Importantly, research shows these policies do not bring the positive outcomes their advocates proclaim, and expelling states often suffer economically and politically in their aftermath.
The anniversary of the 1923 Lausanne Convention is a moment to reflect on the tragedy of the Greek-Turkish “population exchange.” More policy attention is needed to prevent and punish mass expulsion.
Meghan Garrity is a postdoctoral fellow in the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School.
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