Mexico defies ICC and invites Putin to president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum’s inauguration

Mexico plans to disregard provisions of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court if Russian President Vladimir Putin attends President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum’s inauguration on October 1, 2024.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador dismissed a relevant request from Ukraine for Putin’s arrest.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Vladimir Putin

“We can’t do that. It’s not up to us,” Lopez Obrador stated at a news conference on August 8.

The Ukrainian Embassy in Mexico acknowledged in a statement on August 7 that Mexico invites representatives of all countries with which it has diplomatic relations to the inauguration. However, it reminded the country of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) warrant for Putin’s arrest.

 “We hope that the Mexican government is aware of the fact that Vladimir Putin is a war criminal suspected of abducting and forcibly deporting Ukrainian children to Russia, whose arrest warrant has been issued by the International Criminal Court, whose jurisdiction Mexico recognises… We believe that Mexico will execute the international arrest warrant by handing over the above-mentioned [individual] to the UN judicial body in The Hague,” the Ukrainian embassy wrote.

Reports indicate that the team of Claudia Sheinbaum, the newly elected President of Mexico, in coordination with Juan Ramon de la Fuente, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, has begun sending invitations to presidents of different countries to attend Sheinbaum’s inauguration on October 1. They sent one of the official invitations to Putin.

In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, finding him responsible for illegally deporting thousands of children from Ukraine. The issuance of the warrant means that member states should arrest Putin if he travels to their territories.

Earlier, ZMINA reported that the Russian occupying authorities planned to send over 2,500 Ukrainian children from the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions to military-patriotic camps in Russia. There, the children will receive military training and learn to “truly love Russia.

Mexico signed the Rome Statute of the ICC on September 7, 2000, and deposited its instrument of ratification of the Rome Statute on October 28, 2005.