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.
And what does that have to do with arresting a war criminal?
Arresting the leader of a sovereign nation amounts at least to a diplomatic crisis, and at worst to a declaration of war.
And before George Bush is brought to trial I don’t think the West has much credibility in dealing with war criminals.
We’d arrest him but he’d have to set foot in Germany, or at least Europe, first. The US are hardly going to extradite him, aren’t they.
No country would ever arrest Bush. The US has far too much invested in insuring qualified immunity for former heads of state. Imagine if every president knew that any country could either arrest or coerce extradition based solely on decisions made in office, nobody would run for office. There is an implicit guarantee that current presidents will retailate against states that imprison US citizens who act in an official capacity.
Additionally there is no arrest warrant for Bush in Germany, or any country in Europe.
Germany claims universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity as well as wars of aggression. The US can try as much as it wants to tell Germany “Bush is going to come please don’t arrest him”, the answer will be “Have a look at our laws it’s all laid out in very clear terms”. And, no, he’s not going to be recognised as a US diplomat, and therefore won’t be granted immunity.
And of course there’s no arrest warrant he’s not in the country and if we’d send out an Interpol notice the US would go ballistic. Hence the simple understanding that he’s not going to come over for a visit.
States generally decide who to extradite on their own terms. That is nothing new or unusual and Germany certainly isn’t in a position to complain the US won’t extradite a citizen given that we don’t extradite citizens as a matter of principle (unless it’s within the EU and certain conditions are met), but instead trial them over here.
Pretty sure there is a good deal of evidence that Germany caves into US pressure. In fact you admit it yourself, ”US would go ballistic” you claim.
If the US going ballistic over a public Interpol red card is sufficient to prevent Germany from issuing one, where would the sudden courage come from to actually arrest Bush?
“The answer will be ‘Have a look at our laws…’”
No the answer will be "Whatever you say President Biden”. Germany is an incredibly weak country, UK and France are much more geopolitically powerful than Germany and they are effectively US satellites.
It’s simply hilarious how you are trying to puff up Germany as somehow this great power that can afford to alienate the US.
There’s no need to irritate the US when the chances of the US extraditing are zero anyway. And as to arresting him if he sets on German soil: That’s not a matter of courage but law. You know, rule of law and everything you might’ve heard of it.
We’re doing that fucking constantly. Get your Seppo exceptionalism in check you can’t even cast tank barrels without our help much less produce microchips.
”Get your Seppo exceptionalism in check"
Pretty sure I’m not the one who is claiming that my country can unilaterally take an action against a much stronger state that has only ever happened to weaker states and through international coalitions. What makes you think that Germany is so special and heroic that it alone, out of every state in the world, will arrest George Bush?
“You can’t even cast tank barrels without our help”- Who needs tanks when you have air power? Also the US can easily manufacture tank barrels, it has an extremely advanced metallurgy industry, it also produces 12 percent of the total microchips in the world.
Don’t try to compare Germany to a state 4 times larger than it, you’re going to be sad and disappointed.
It’s a matter of law, not politics. Politicians don’t get asked, it’s all the juridical system, and no there’s no legal basis to give diplomatic immunity to non-diplomats (or, to a limited degree, their direct families). You really don’t get it do you. It’s why Bush, unlike e.g. Obama, doesn’t ever come over. He no doubt has been advised about the situation.
It’s the same reason why Putin didn’t come to South Africa: He was advised that he would be arrested.
Is that why the US industry begged Trump to cave in in that little steel trade war so that they would not have to pay premium for alloys the US industry can’t produce.
Yeah try doing that without German machines, machine components, metrology equipment, and similar. The list of critical components and knowledge we or another European nation (mostly German-speaking ones though) are the sole provider of is practically endless, it’s got to do with our economic structure full of hidden champions, small, even tiny, companies completely dominating the world market in their one particular and critical niche.
What do you intend to do, invade? Lose the modicum of dignity you have left on the international stage? Over a war criminal? Against the whole of NATO plus EU? Not to mention that we can sink carriers without you knowing where the torpedo came from (ask your Admirals), and the French would have no qualms to nuke one as a warning shot.
But I have no doubt that you will find some exceptionalist cope to continue believing that the US is all-powerful. That you could snip your fingers and tell us “Bush is going to hold a speech in Berlin and he’s not getting arrested”. That’s not how the world works. The way the world works is that he’s not getting arrested because he’s not coming over because you’d, push come to shove, rather limit his movement than let him be arrested because you don’t like where that would lead. It’s the scenario everyone is way more comfortable with than any of the alternatives so it is the scenario that happens.
No European country would arrest Putin, let alone a NATO country, and especially not Germany lol. They wouldn’t even allow him into the country in the first place.
I think they were talking about Bush. While I think Cheney deserves it more, was there ever an arrest warrant for either of them?
I don’t think so, which is also one of the reasons anyone outside the western hemisphere can safely dismiss anything the ICC says. But also the US made it pretty clear it would not accept any international court ruling, and AFIK there even was a slight threat of violence when it was being discussed a decade ago.
Oh, no
He’s only a war criminal if convicted in a court of law.
No, I’m not defending Putin in the slightest bit, I’m simply stating that just because people across the globe have labelled him as a war criminal, doesn’t automatically make that official.
And that’s why the ICC issued a warrant and any sane country should execute the warrant. We just want to talk to him…
Eh… the international legal system is not very functional so I’m not sure I agree with this. By that definition Hitler was not a war criminal either because he died before going to trial.
Plenty of war criminals already living freely in NATO countries.
From the excellent Harley Quinn cartoon
Excellent cartoon. There’s also “Dr. Henry Killinger” from Venture Bros which was hilariously devious.