Judging Freedom - World Court Orders Russia to Suspend Military Action in Ukraine

Episode Date: March 17, 2022

Hello there, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is March 17, 2022, St. Patrick's Day. I forgot my green, but we'll put it on shortly. It's about 940 in the morning. Please don't forget to subscribe to Judging Freedom and ask your friends to do so. Our goal is 12,000 by Easter. That means that each of you that really likes this show and likes the way I explain things and generally agree with what I say needs to produce two friends to subscribe. Doesn't cost anything. If you press the notification button, you get a little ping when I'm coming on the air. I'm on this morning because the International Criminal Court has just engaged in an effort in futility, ordering Russia to cease its invasion of Ukraine.

All right. We all know what's going on in Ukraine. It's heartbreaking. It's horrific. It's unprovoked. A lot of people think that Ukraine is still a part of Russia and Putin has every right to bring it back in. A lot of people believe that Ukraine is an independent and free nation and the attack is unprovoked and it's a war crime. The International Criminal Court in Brussels, which is a court of 15 judges, voted 13 to 2, ordering Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop the invasion. Who are the two? The Russian judge and the Chinese judge. This is really an effort in futility because the court does not have any means of enforcing its will unless the defendant is incarcerated in a jail that the court controls. This reminds me of a famous Supreme Court opinion written by Chief Justice John Marshall during the presidency of Andrew Jackson

when the president did not like what the opinion was, President Andrew Jackson famously said, John Marshall has issued his opinion, now let him enforce it. Because the court at the time and today has no enforcement mechanism, and this court is the same. So where are we going with this? It's interesting, of course, that the Chinese judge voted no. And all this happened on the same day that President Biden said that Vladimir Putin is a war criminal. That's a little troubling for America. Why is it troubling for America? Well, because George W. Bush famously invaded Iraq on the pretext of finding weapons of mass destruction, which weren't there, and for the existence of which there was no evidence, notwithstanding an infamous speech at the UN by his once respected, now deceased, Secretary of State Colin Powell. George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq was as unprovoked and as fraught with criminality as is Vladimir Putin's. That's one

way to look at this. That's why there was a lot of agita at the State Department and the Defense Department when President Biden called Vladimir Putin a war criminal. If the war was unprovoked, which it appears to be, if his troops are targeting civilians, which we know that they are, then war crimes are being committed. But back to the International Criminal Court, it can't and won't hold a trial unless the defendant is in the courtroom. That would mean that Vladimir Putin would need to go there voluntarily. It's not likely to happen. Or be tricked into going there. That's not likely to happen. or to be forced there after he leaves office. That could happen. It happened to Slobodan Milosevic, the murderous dictator of Yugoslavia. Again, there's two sides to that

fight as well, but Milosevic is serving a life sentence for attempted genocide. It wasn't for genocide. So I don't know how this is going to end. It now appears that Vladimir Putin can't go anywhere in the world outside of China for fear that he might be restrained against his will and brought to that court and tried for war crimes. He brought this on himself. But you never know how these things might end. You never know what agreements people might enter into. War is hell, and hell is unpredictable. Judge Napolitano, judging freedom.