War is cruel, but international humanitarian law experts say the atrocities emerging from Ukraine are not how modern conflict is supposed to look. The International Criminal Court prosecutor has already started an investigation and the French Interior Ministry of Justice has sent doctors and more than a dozen crime scene investigators to Ukraine to collect evidence for possible war crimes charges.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other leaders have said what the Russians are doing in Ukraine amounts to war crimes. Last month, the U.S. embassy in Kyiv called it a war crime to attack a nuclear plant.
Now, the United States, Ukraine and the United Kingdom are investigating reports of alleged chemical attacks in Mariupol, bolstering evidence of possible war crimes if confirmed.
“What is happening in Bucha is outrageous and everyone sees it,” President Joe Biden said last week amid the Bucha revelations. “It is a war crime.”
But war crimes cases are notoriously difficult to prove and prosecute. Even with the right evidence and eyewitness accounts, the murder of civilians by Russian forces may not present a clear cut case. The international legal basis for prosecution is not universally accepted, and context, intent and often geopolitics matter. War crimes have often been too slippery to stick, with obvious offenders sometimes escaping conviction. And because of these complications, the accused can wait decades to face any…
