The Criminal Responsability of Vladimir Putin & CO. For the Commission of the Crime of Aggression

This work aims to demonstrate the jurisdictional avenues (de lege lata) available to prosecute Vladimir Putin and the rest of the high-ranking political and military officials of the Russian Federation for the crime of international aggression. To do so, we will dedicate the following three sections to studying the criminal figure: the crime of international aggression. Specifically, we will examine the legally protected objective (legal interest) of the offence, how this impacts the typological structure (objective and subjective) of the crime, and which elements constitute (prima facie) the pactum scaleris or criminal agreement in the specific case of the invasion of Ukraine. Afterwards, we will analyse the pros and cons of resorting to the International Criminal Court, the possibility of establishing an ad hoc international tribunal, and what I consider the most plausible hypothesis (although not mentioned, as far as we know, by the Academy): that Russian justice itself oversee holding the perpetrators of these atrocities accountable.