Judges Priya Pillai, left, Zak Yacoob, center, and Stephen Rapp, right, listen to the first witness of the 'people's tribunal' where prosecutors symbolically put Russian President Vladimir Putin on trial for the crime of aggression in Ukraine, in The Hague, Netherlands, Monday, Feb. 20, 2023.
“This is a crime that belongs in the annals of infamy. It is a crime that demands accountability,” said Drew White, a Canadian lawyer acting as one of the court's prosecutors. However, international pressure is mounting for a special tribunal to be established to prosecute the crime. The European Union’s legislature passed a non-binding resolution in January calling on the 27-nation bloc to work “in close cooperation with Ukraine to seek and build political support in the U.N. General Assembly and other international forums ... for creating the special tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine.