Ukrainian activists demand ICC response to UN Secretary-General’s meeting with Putin
The coalition of public organizations “Ukraine. Five in the Morning” and the “Civil Liberties Center” expressed public condemnation of the visit of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to Russia and his planned meeting with President Vladimir Putin. This is stated in the open statements, posted on the website of the NGO Truth Hounds, which is the initiator of the appeal and is part of the said coalition.
Activists reminded that Putin is under an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court, therefore the UN Secretary General’s meeting with him undermines the authority of the ICC and the basic principles on which the UN is based.
“This move appears to ignore international justice and calls into question the neutrality of the UN in the conflict. We call on the international community to respond to this situation and prevent similar violations in the future“, the statement says.
Representatives of public organizations called on the international community to take measures to avoid similar situations in the future.
NGOs also appealed to the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute, relevant UN bodies and the International Criminal Court with a request to provide an official assessment of this situation and take appropriate measures.
Activists emphasize that this meeting challenges the decisions of the ICC, which are aimed at investigating the most serious international crimes that threaten global security and well-being. In accordance with Article 18 of the Treaty on Relations between the United Nations and the International Criminal Court, civil society organizations called on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to require Guterres to provide information obtained during the meeting with Putin that could contribute to the investigation.
The “Ukraine. Five in the morning” coalition includes more than 30 organizations, including “ZMINA Human Rights Center”, “Crimea-SOS”, “Kharkiv Anti-Corruption Center”, “Almenda Center for Civic Education”, “The Reckoning Project” and other human rights associations.
We will remind that Antonio Guterres arrived in Russia on October 22 for the BRICS summit, where he is expected to meet with Putin on the last day of the event. This decision also drew criticism from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, which recalled that in June Guterres refused to participate in the Peace Summit organized by Ukraine in Switzerland.
