The Criminal Code of Ukraine will be brought into line with the norms of the Rome Statute of ICC

The Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian Parliament) voted in the second reading for draft law No. 11484, which brings the Criminal Code of Ukraine into compliance with the norms of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak reported this.

To date, the provisions of the Criminal Code of Ukraine have not provided for criminal liability for crimes against humanity and war crimes. Since the adoption of the Criminal Code, its provisions have been systematically inconsistent with modern international law, so it will now be updated. And Ukrainian legislation will respond to the Rome Statute.

The law, in particular, criminalizes crimes against humanity. It will also introduce command responsibility, meaning that commanders will be held responsible for the war crimes of their subordinates, even if they did not personally commit them, but knew about them and ignored them.

In addition, the law provides for an increase in the term of punishment for the crime of aggression to life imprisonment.

• On August 24, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky signed the law on the ratification of the Rome Statute. The Rome Statute is an international treaty that became the basis for the creation of ICC and defined the list of crimes that the court has the right to investigate: war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and crimes of aggression.

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