Putin will not be able to travel or fly over 123 countries after the arrest warrant of the International Criminal Court

The charges announced by this court are the first international accusations against the Kremlin leader since the invasion began. It is also the first time in history that The Hague appoints the president of a country that is part of the United Nations Security Council.

Although this decision is unprecedented, putting Putin on the bench will not be so easy. While it is true that The Hague does not grant immunity to heads of state or positions of power in cases of alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide, Moscow does not recognize the jurisdiction of this court. In addition, the Russian Constitution does not provide for the extradition of nationals.

“Russia is not a State party to the ICC and as long as he is in Russian territory he cannot be detained, so he could only be arrested in one of the signatory States of the Rome Statute,” he explains. Carlos Gil, doctorate in International Criminal Law to EL ESPAÑOL. It means to one of the 123 signatory countries of the text constituent body of the ICC, which includes most of the countries of the European Union and Central Africa, but not China, Iran, India or the United States, which have not ratified the Statute.

That means that if the Russian leader ever set foot in one of those territories, they would be forced to cooperate in the arrest. He wouldn’t even need to put his feet on the ground. international agreements they recognize state sovereignty over airspace, which means that the air that flies over a national territory is also governed by its laws. In this sense, confirms Gil, if Putin were to fly over a country like Spain or Germany, he would still be obliged to collaborate in complying with the international arrest warrant.

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However, carrying out this operation would not be so simple from a regulatory point of view. As explained Ignacio Perottiprofessor of Public International Law at the European University of Madrid, the Chicago Convention of 1944 establishes that States exercise full sovereignty over their airspace and, therefore, require State, military or civil aircraft to request prior authorization.

“The problem is that this Convention regulates and covers only commercial flightsnot the ships of the States”, details Perotti, who describes three possible scenarios in the event that Putin – who has considerably reduced his trips abroad since the start of the war – wanted to fly over a territory subject to the ICC.

The first possibility is that a state denies a Russian state aircraft with the president on board to pass over its territory. The second, that Putin travels on a commercial plane over a country that is part of the chicago convention, which would not allow the State to refuse the peaceful overflight. The last card that Putin could use would be to fly over without warning and, therefore, without authorization.

“In the latter case, however, I see it as very unlikely that a State – taking into account the dynamics of current international relations and the complex situation of the war in Ukraine – will force the aircraft to transfer it, whether commercial or of the Russian State, to land to comply with the arrest warrant”, the academic qualifies.

Added to this complication is the involvement of the countries to cooperate. In this sense, Gil recalls the case of Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir, ex-president of Sudan, who is under an arrest warrant which, however, has not prevented him from traveling for years to various African countries that recognize the ICC. And it is not an exception: today, the court has pending the arrest of 15 people who between all of them they add up to more than 200 charges.