UN Charter and Budapest Memorandum: Opportunities for Protecting Belarusian Sovereignty and Punishing Those Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity in Belarus
Mikhail KucherovReport to the legal conference (Nuremberg, October 11, 2021) of the International Initiative “The Road to The Hague” (in Belarusian: "Шлях да Гаагі") coordinated by the Institute for the Study of Russian Aggression (Kiev). Speaker is Mikhail Kucherov, IT specialist, political refugee since 2002, coordinator of the International Campaign “The Road to The Hague” and the Civil Online Community “Association of Belarusians of Luxembourg (in Belarusian: "Згуртаванне беларусаў Люксембурга").
On the 29th of September 2021, the head of the National Anti-Crisis Management (NAM) Pavel Latushko suggested that the democratic forces should work out a unified strategy for the short and medium term. He Said: "This is the time to make political decisions and to take responsibility for them, this is the time to act!".
NAM proposes "to create a Belarusian democratic platform for the widest possible communication and coordination of actions and to convene a Congress of Belarusians to decide on the establishment of alternative institutions of power to those created by the regime."
In order to develop a "unified strategy" and its implementation by "alternative institutions of power", it is necessary to determine the status of Belarus under the Lukashenko regime and the way back to the status acquired by Belarus in the system of international law before.
As the most affected during the Second World War, Belarus and Ukraine received the right to become the founders of the United Nations among fifty countries and to sign the UN Charter at a conference in San Francisco on June 26, 1945. Belarus and Ukraine are the architects of the international security system.
On December 5, 1994, the nuclear powers United States, Great Britain and Russia provided Belarus and Ukraine with security guarantees under the Budapest Memorandum (Memorandum) on the principles of the OSCE Helsinki Final Act for their renunciation of nuclear weapons (NW) and accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of July 1, 1968 years (NPT). On the same day, France and China joined the Memorandum with their diplomatic notes.
US President William J. Clinton, UK Prime minister John Magor
Securities guaranteed under the Memorandum are an action warranted by the nuclear powers in relation to Belarus and Ukraine to the OSCE principles. By renouncing such conditions from nuclear weapons, Belarus and Ukraine strengthened the international nuclear non-proliferation regime and the security system in the OSCE region and linked the existence of these security regimes to the exercise of Belarus' and Ukraine's rights to state sovereignty and territorial integrity.
In other words, in countries with the status of founders of the United Nations and with security guarantees under the Budapest Memorandum on the principles of the OSCE, international crimes must be excluded a priori! After all, the responsibility for their implementation lies with the "guarantor countries" - permanent members of the UN Security Council, responsible for maintaining the security regime in the world.
Still, the main responsibility for committing crimes against humanity in Belarus and war crimes in Ukraine lies with the citizens of these countries. International crimes are the result of non-compliance with generally accepted norms of international law. Recent events are developing in the direction of creating a precedent in the world practice of confrontation between the two states, which are guaranteed security under the Memorandum. Thus, Belarusians will be forced to defend the "allied" Crimea as part of the "union" army with the aggressor Russia!
Understanding the tragic consequences of this prompted the Association of Belarusians of Luxembourg to launch the “Way to The Hague” International Campaign in September 2020 to return Belarus and Ukraine to international law by bringing those responsible for international crimes to justice in the International Criminal court in The Hague. The coordinators of this campaign are representatives of the Belarusian and Ukrainian diasporas.
If Nuremberg is associated with the condemnation of Nazi criminals following the results of World War II, then Luxembourg claims to be associated with the cessation of international crimes and the restoration of the security system in the OSCE region, destroyed by the confrontation between Russia and the West - the EU program "Eastern Partnership" vs "Union State" of Russia and Belarus.
The Joint Declaration on the Digital Economy of the EU and the Eastern Partnership was approved in Luxembourg on 11 June 2015. It includes the Belarusian proposal for the accession of partner countries to the European Declaration on e-Government (Malmö Declaration, eUnion program) in order to implement the PACE ecommendation on concluding additional agreements to the Budapest Memorandum (PACE resolution of April 9, 2014 881988 (2014) "Recent events in Ukraine: threats to the functioning of democratic institutions").
The implementation of the roadmaps (eUkraine + eUnion and eBelarus + eUnion) should be supported by the guarantor countries of the United States and the United Kingdom, lead to an end to international crime and the restoration of nuclear non-proliferation and security in the OSCE region.
The Joint Declaration committed partner countries to institutional reforms. Accession to the eUnion program must be preceded by measures to establish the rule of law (rehabilitation, restitution, lustration) and democracy in order to close the digital divide with eUnion member states (EU countries, EU candidates and members of the European Free Trade Area - EFTA).
Crimes against humanity in Belarus are a priority in the overall list and are the basis for consultations with US and British guarantor countries on the adoption by the UN Security Council of a special resolution to investigate these crimes at the International Criminal Court in The Hague under Article 13 (b) of the Rome Statute.
The guarantor countries should be consulted on the basis of a report by the OSCE Moscow Mechanism, which recommended the establishment of an International Platform for Belarus (IAPB) to bring to justice those responsible for serious human rights violations, including crimes against humanity.
In order to confirm the right to call to account for the violation of the Budapest Memorandum in accordance with Article 45 of the Annex to the UN General Assembly Resolution of 12 December 2001 № 56/589 "Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts":
a). in Belarus initiated the removal of Lukashenko from the post of President of the Republic of Belarus for committing serious criminal offenses under Art. 356 of the Criminal code of the Republic of Belarus (treason), h. 3 Art. 357 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus (seizure and retention of power in an unconstitutional way, involving the killing of people) and Art. 128 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus (crimes against human security);
Translation of the Resolution of the Supreme Council
b). in Ukraine on the Belarusian initiative on May 23, 2019 opened criminal proceedings under Part 1 of Article. 111 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (treason) on the fact of concluding "Minsk agreements" to the detriment of security guarantees of Ukraine under the Budapest Memorandum. With the resumption of negotiations on December 9, 2019 in the "Norman format", the investigation of the case "was put on hold."
Belarus under the Lukashenko regime is in the status of a "captured" state!
On December 5, 1994, Alexander Lukashenko signed the Budapest Memorandum.
Less than six months later, violating the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Belarus and putting an end to the principles of the OSCE Memorandum, on May 14, 1995, Lukashenko held an illegal "referendum" on integration with the Russian Federation and changing the state historical symbol of Belarus to the former Soviet ones.
As a result of this "referendum" on April 2, 1996, an "agreement on the establishment of a community of Russia and Belarus" was concluded. This allowed Lukashenko, with Russian support, to avoid impeachment for violating the Constitution and laws of the Republic of Belarus - November 22, 1996 with the direct participation of senior Russian officials (E.S.Stroyev, G.N.Selesnev, V.S.Chernomyrdin) between Alexander Lukashenko and Semyon Sharetsky, Chairman of the Supreme Council of the 13th convocation of the Republic of Belarus, signed the Agreement "On the Socio-political Situation and the Constitutional Reform in the Republic of Belarus".
By interfering in the internal affairs of sovereign Belarus, Russia violated paragraph 3 of the Budapest Memorandum, thwarted Lukashenko's impeachment, and helped him hold a "referendum" on November 24, 1996 to destroy the country's constitutional order.
By signing the Agreement "On the Socio-Political Situation and Constitutional Reform in the Republic of Belarus", the Russian Federation subordinated to its interests the realization of the rights inherent in the state sovereignty of the Republic of Belarus. From that moment on, Belarus has a status similar to the Ukrainian Temporarily Occupied Territories and is governed by the Kremlin through its protege Lukashenko.
In order to liberate Belarus from the status of a "captured" state and return it to the system of international law, it is proposed to support NAM's proposal to create a Belarusian democratic platform with the formation of alternative institutions of power at the World Congress of Belarusians. This step should be aimed at preventing the armed confrontation of Belarusians in an "alliance" with the Russians against the Ukrainians.
At the World Congress of Belarusians on 31 October 2020, a vote was held, according to which 96.8% of its participants gave the chairman of the Council of the Belarusian People's Republic Ivonka Survilla, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and Pavel Latushko (Head of NAM) the power to represent the interests of Belarusians in prosecuting Alexander Lukashenko in The International Criminal Court in The Hague in the process of implementing the "road map" (eBelarus + eUnion).
It is proposed to consider the eBelarus platform as the Belarusian Democratic Platform. The political and legal basis of eBelarus's activities is the Belarus Constitution of 1994, “Gonchar's conclusion” and the Budapest Memorandum.
еBelarus residency will be provided on the basis of passports of Belarusian citizens living both in its territory and abroad, in synchronization with the European Digital Identification System (EDIF).
It is proposed to link the creation of the International Platform for Belarus for Prosecuting Crime Criminals with the creation of eBelarus, with the integration of digital state platform services with EU services and with the EU4Digital: eUnion regional network.
Joe Biden: "The world is divided into digital democracies and authoritarian regimes." - The accession of partner countries to eUnion is reflected in the strategy of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum "Information Society Instead of War".
The Steering Committee of the EU4Digital initiative is recommended to urgently initiate the creation of a regional network of EU4Digital: eUnion under the control of the Council of Europe, the European Union and the OSCE (European Three).
The involvement of the Council of Europe, the European Union and the OSCE (European Three) in restoring the regional security system was addressed by the OSCE during the online conference "Digital Technologies and Human Rights - Opportunities and Challenges: An Additional Meeting on the Human Dimension III". This is reflected in the proposals of Belarus to the Ukrainian government on the activities of the Crimean platform.
In the process of forming the Belarusian democratic platform "eBelarus" it is necessary to take real action to give it international legal personality.
On May 12, 2020, the Belarusian Social Democratic Party (Hramada) appealed to the UN to repeal Art. 103 of the UN Charter of registration in the UN Secretariat of the so-called "treaty on the establishment of a union state" between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus.
Since March 18, 2014, the "union state" includes the Ukrainian Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol - Belarus violates the international policy of non-recognition of their changed status, approved on March 27, 2014 by 100 countries by UN General Assembly Resolution №68 / 262 "Territorial Integrity of Ukraine". The Russian Federation and the Lukashenko regime voted AGAINST the resolution.
Translation of the appeal of the BSDP (Hramada) to the UN (rus/eng)
Recommendations:
1. To start institutional reforms in the framework of the implementation of the "road map" (eBelarus + eUnion), provided by the Joint Declaration on the Digital Economy of the EU and the Eastern Partnership, with the support of the United States and Great Britain - the guarantors of Belarus' security under the Budapest Memorandum.
2. To start the formation of the register of e-residents of the eBelarus platform with the placement of servers in the EU country with the attraction of funding from the EU assistance package.
3. To prepare a political and legal opinion on the basis of "Gonchar's conclusion" and the crimes committed by Lukashenko after his commission of serious criminal offenses to deprive him of his status immunity with the approval of the decision at the World Congress of Belarusians of 2020.
4. Begin consultations with the guarantor countries of the United States and the United Kingdom on the adoption by the UN Security Council of a special resolution to investigate crimes against humanity in Belarus at the International Criminal Court in The Hague under Article 13 (b) of the Rome Statute.
5. In view of the accusations made by Lukashenko of seizing and retaining state power in an unconstitutional manner, involving the killing of people and crimes against humanity, to proceed with the formation of a register of representatives of the judicial system of the state involved in complicity in the crimes of Lukashenko by issuing knowingly illegal sentences on behalf of the Republic of Belarus in cases of bringing knowingly innocent accused (Articles 392 and 393 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus).
Further actions of the leaders of the Democratic Forces within the framework of the 1996 Constitution or the adoption of a "new Constitution" in the presence of "Gonchar's conclusion" will be regarded as legalization (complicity) of the crime of seizing and retaining state power since 1996 (destruction of the constitutional order of Belarus). After the Nuremberg Conference, these actions will be reflected in the implementation (eBelarus + eUnion).
Situation in Belarus: UN Security Council meeting on the "Arria formula" - (Estonia called the situation in Belarus a threat to the stability of the region)