Review

The Government of Ukraine lodged two declarations under article 12(3) of the Rome Statute accepting the International Criminal Court's jurisdiction over crimes committed on Ukrainian territory. On 25 April 2014, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court opened a preliminary examination of  the situation in Ukraine. During the preliminary examination stage there are no circumstances which could avoid cooperation between Ukraine and ICC. At once Ukrainian Code of Criminal Procedure contains some gaps which could block cooperation at the stage of investigation and prosecution. In particular, national legislation allows cooperation between Ukraine and international criminal courts (tribunals) only if exist some international treaty which regulate such cooperation.

Consequently cooperation between Ukraine and International Criminal Court needs the strengthening at national level. The Government of Ukraine prepared draft bill which contains all necessary amendments to the Ukrainian Code of Criminal Procedure. Unfortunately the draft bill was blocked by Verkhovna Rada Committee on Legislative Support of Law Enforcement.

The purpose of this article is to analyze criticism of the above mentioned draft bill.

The Committee especially insists on unconstitutionality of the draft bill by appealing to the Opinion of the Constitutional court of Ukraine on the conformity of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court with the Constitution of Ukraine (the Rome Statute case). In this opinion Constitutional Court of Ukraine declared the principle of complementarity, as set forth in the Rome Statute, to be in conflict with the Ukrainian Constitution. However the Committee's position is unconvincing for a wide variety of reasons. Firstly, it ignores most recent constitutional amendments which allow to ratify the Rome Statute. Secondly, there is reason to believe that Constitutional Court of Ukraine has already revised its opinion about unconstitutionality of the the principle of complementarity.

Keywords: principle of complementarity; International Criminal Court; grounds of international cooperation; constitutionality; international treaty.