Nick Schifrin:
So, could President Putin end up being arrested and put on trial by the International Criminal Court?
David Scheffer was U.S. ambassador at large for crimes issues during the Clinton administration. He's now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
David Scheffer, welcome to the "NewsHour."
A senior official in the administration told me today that this would be the most consequential prosecution of international justice since the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders.
Why do you think this announcement is significant?
David Scheffer, Former U.S. Ambassador at Large For War Crimes: (AUDIO GAP) Secondly, bear in mind that indicting or issuing an arrest warrant against the head of state is always going to be a very, very significant development in international criminal justice.
And it has been done before over the last 30 years. Many senior leaders, top leaders of countries have actually been indicted and brought to justice before international criminal tribunals. And even before the International Criminal Court, al-Bashir of Sudan, Gadhafi of Libya, they were — they were indicted while they were in power.
But the consequence, which is what Mr. Putin now faces, is that it does delegitimize the individual, so, first of all, certainly as an international pariah. But, secondly, even domestically, it starts to erode at that person's power domestically.
And I think it'll be very interesting to watch how this affects the Russian opposition within Russia with respect to Mr. Putin's own fate in the near future.
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