On Friday, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin on charges of committing a war crime in connection with the war in Ukraine. Does that mean Putin is being tried at the Hague-based ICC?
The court called for Putin's arrest on suspicion of responsibility for the deportation of children and the illegal transfer of people from Ukraine to Russia since the start of the war on Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
The ICC's 123 member states must execute arrest warrants for Putin and Russian Children's Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova if they travel there.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan told AFP when asked if Putin would be arrested if he set foot in any of those countries: "Yes, that's right."
Cooperation of Member States
But while that decision will make it difficult for Putin to travel, the court has no police of its own to carry out its orders and relies entirely on the cooperation of ICC member states.
A session of the International Criminal Court based in the Dutch city of The Hague (Reuters)
ICC arrest warrants are rarely executed by member states, especially when it comes to a Putin-style head of state.
For example, deposed Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir was able to visit a number of ICC member states, including South Africa and Jordan, despite the fact that the ICC had issued an arrest warrant against him.
Although the military overthrew al-Bashir in 2019, Sudanese authorities have not handed over the deposed president to the ICC.
Matthew Waxman, a professor at Columbia Law School, said Putin's arrest warrant was "an important step for the court, but the odds are slim that we will see Putin arrested."
What are the main obstacles?
First and foremost, Russia, like the United States and China, is not a member state of the ICC, and therefore not bound by its decisions.
The ICC was able to bring charges against Putin because Ukraine accepted its competence over the current situation, of which Kiev is not a member either.
But Moscow flatly rejected the arrest warrants against Putin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia "does not recognize the jurisdiction of this court, and therefore from a legal point of view, the decisions of this court are invalid."
Although Russia signed the court's Rome Statute, it did not ratify it to become a member, and withdrew its signature on Putin's orders in 2016 after the court launched an investigation into the 2008 Georgia war, to which Moscow was a party.
Cicely Rose, an assistant professor of public international law at Leiden University, says Putin is unlikely to end up in the dock for war crimes "unless the regime changes in Russia."
Are there precedents?
Several political and military leaders have already been prosecuted for war crimes, according to the ICC prosecutor.
"There are a lot of examples of people who thought they were above the law. They found themselves in the courts. Look at Slobodan Milosevic (former Yugoslav president), Charles Taylor (former president of Liberia), Radovan Karadzic (former president of Republika Srpska) and Ratko Mladic (former commander of the Republika Srpska)."
The former president of Liberia was convicted by the International Criminal Court in 2012 of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and Milosevic died in his cell in The Hague in 2006 during a genocidal trial at the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal.
Karadzic was arrested in 2008 and convicted of genocide, while his military commander Mladic was imprisoned in 2011 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Are there any other options?
The ICC cannot try suspects in absentia, but Khan explained that the court has other means to move forward in some cases.
He cited a recent case in which the judges of the court were asked to hold a hearing to confirm the charges against Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) who launched a bloody insurgency in Uganda, although he remains at large.
The ICC prosecutor added that "this procedure may be available for any other situation, including the current case" involving Putin.