UPDATE - Russia withdraws from International Criminal Court

ADDS STATE DEPT. REACTION

By Hakan Ceyhan Aydogan

MOSCOW (AA) - President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday withdrew Russia from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is facing mounting pressure due to withdrawals by several African states.

Putin signed an executive order to remove Russia’s signature from the court’s founding treaty, which Russia signed in 2000 but never ratified. As a result Moscow never submitted itself to the court’s jurisdiction.

The decision came after the ICC referred to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in eastern Ukraine in 2014 as an armed conflict. The court is also investigating alleged war crimes committed by Russian forces during the conflict with Georgia in 2008.

Russia has recently been accused of committing war crimes in Syria, where its military is said by the U.S. and human rights groups to have bombed civilian targets. Russia has denied the claims.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the order was in line with Russian national interests. The Foreign Ministry said the court had “not become a genuinely independent authoritative organ of international justice”.

The ministry’s statement pointed out that the court had pronounced four verdicts and spent more than $1 billion in the 14 years since it was founded.

U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said during a press briefing that it hoped Russia's decision did not lead to "some sort of a death knell for the court".

The ICC, based in The Hague, Netherlands, was founded when 120 countries adopted its founding treaty in 1998. It followed a series of ad hoc UN war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

Burundi, Gambia and South Africa recently announced their withdrawal from the court, which holds trials for offenses such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.