Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said that Russian leader Vladimir Putin will not be arrested in Brazil if he attends the Group of 20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro next year.
Lula, speaking to the Firstpost news show at the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Delhi on Saturday, said Putin would be invited to next year’s event.
He added that he himself planned to attend a BRICS bloc of developing nations meeting due in Russia before the Rio meeting.
“I believe that Putin can go easily to Brazil,” Lula said. “What I can say to you is that if I’m president of Brazil, and he comes to Brazil, there’s no way he will be arrested.”
The statement comes after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against Putin in March, accusing him of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine.
Fair enough. We don’t know what will happen until it happens. I’m just trying to provide some rationale for why countries won’t be exercising that particular option.
Fun fact, in Russia the president can declare war unilaterally. I wonder what incentives a imprisoned Russian president have to prevent them from ordering a military rescue, military intervention, full-fledged war.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war
Another fun thought experiment: The United Nations is headquartered in New York City. If the Russian president wants to address the United Nations personally. The UN requires free passage for diplomats to visit the UN. The United States is a signatory of the UN charter. So the United States is obligated to allow freedom of movement to and from the UN by Russian diplomats including the president to address the UN.
If the US breaks the UN charter, things get really interesting very fast.
This will definitely never happen, for many reasons, but not inconsequentially because the US is not a signatory to the ICC
Not because “they broke the UN charter”. International laws and diplomatic agreements are game of power and alliances. The US hosts and is the largest funder of the UN, closely allied to most of the other major supporters, and has some form of power over most of the other nations. There are no higher authorities enforcing international laws.
Having thought about it let’s do a thought experiment. The United States president has engine trouble and has to land in Iran. The Iranians arrest the US president for illegal sanctions against the Iranian State.
What happens next?
Does the US allow the Iranian legal system time to follow its due process and come to a conclusion? Or does something else happen?
I take your point but I think the power dynamic there makes it pretty different. The US has a much greater ability to damage Iran than Iran has the US. While that may also be true to some extent between NATO and Russia, nuclear weapons make everyone extra wary of such a conflict. Let’s say Putin or his lieutenant declare war in response. Do the foot-soldiers follow through knowing it may lead to nuclear annihilation? That’s unclear.
But even actions that have a chance of leading to that outcome will be avoided, which is why Putin will not be arrested. It’s also not clear he would be replaced by anyone who would improve the situation, so there’s really no incentive to do this at all.