On June 25 during the NATO Summit 2025 in the Hague, President Zelensky and the Secretary General of the Council of Europe Alain Berset signed an important agreement to create a Special Tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine.
This tribunal will focus on holding state’s leaders personally responsible for starting the war of aggression against Ukraine. The word personally is key — it means that individuals who made the decision to start the war can be held criminally accountable.
The tribunal will be set up within the Council of Europe, but it will also be supported and financed by other countries outside the Council.
Ukraine is actively involved in this process. The goal is to make sure the tribunal is international, independent, and trusted by the global community.
It’s also important to note that the tribunal’s jurisdiction is based on Ukrainian territorial jurisdiction.
As Iryna Mudra, Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, explained, ‘this new tribunal is designed to work in complementarity with the International Criminal Court (ICC), not in competition.’ Proceedings can run in parallel, and if a suspect is transferred to the ICC, the tribunal’s case will be paused.
Another important achievement for Ukraine is the ability to conduct proceedings in absentia — allowing trials to move forward even when the accused is not present.
The tribunal can and will issue convictions even if the accused is not present in court and not only to top leadership — the so-called “Troika” — but also to other figures in the political and military leadership of Russia, and possibly from Belarus and North Korea. According to the Council of Europe, Belarusian or North Korean individuals could potentially be prosecuted if evidence shows they played a significant role in the crime of aggression against Ukraine
What could be more essential than an public prosecution — fully transparent and exposing every detail of the atrocities behind the crime of aggression committed by those leaders? These indictments will stand as legal truth, clearly recording who started this war, when, and how.
Practical work on the tribunal can begin once countries confirm their political and financial support through a special agreement called the Enlarged Partial Agreement. Countries, including those in the EU, will be able to finalise this once their internal legal steps are completed.
ULN spoke with international criminal lawyer Carolyn Edgerton for her thoughts, from a civil society perspective – on the signing of the agreement to establish the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression.
“The Special Tribunal’s core documents, which were released earlier this week, reflect that this is just the beginning what might be a historic justice process,” Carolyn Edgerton said. “There is no doubt that Ukrainians have questions as to what value the mechanism might have might have for them”
Carolyn stressed the vital role civil society actors will have in the work ahead.
“The Tribunal’s Statute specifically allows for “collective” victim participation. What that practically means hasn’t yet been defined. This positions civil society as a vital interlocutor on behalf of the victims to ensure their participation is meaningful and genuine, and that Ukrainian voices are heard in proceedings at the Special Tribunal, whenever they might take place”, she said.
Yuliya Ziskina, a Senior Legal Fellow at the nonprofit Razom for Ukraine expressed her belief that the tribunal will become an important part of a broader global framework for holding the aggressor state accountable — including the compensation mechanism, which is also a product of cooperation among the same partner countries.
“While the tribunal will play a vital role in holding individual Russian leaders accountable for the crime of aggression, it must be part of a broader justice framework. The Russian Federation, as a state, must also be held responsible for the immense damage it has caused. A complementary compensation mechanism is essential — one that includes a reparations framework funded by the $300 billion in frozen Russian state assets. This would provide a tangible, enforceable form of justice, reinforcing the tribunal’s work and delivering direct support to Ukraine. True accountability requires not only prosecution, but also meaningful compensation,” Yulia Zyskina says.
The Asser Institute published a Report on the Special Tribunal, with legal analysis of the ‘Council of Europe model,’ as well as broader legal and policy considerations. It contains contributions from Dr Gabrielė Chlevickaitė, Dr Kateryna Busol, Prof. Frank Hoffmeister, and Dr Owiso. The Report outlines the legal and political developments that led to it, identifying key gaps in international law (particularly the inability of the International Criminal Court to prosecute Russia’s top leadership for aggression), and proposing a model for the tribunal based on a Ukraine–Council of Europe agreement. It also discusses the need for victim participation, legitimacy of the new mechanism, and steps toward a broader accountability and reparations framework, including the Register of Damage and frozen Russian assets.
