The International Accountability Platform for Belarus (IAPB) has submitted evidence and legal analyses to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to inform its preliminary examination into whether it has jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute alleged crimes against humanity, including deportation, persecution, and other inhumane acts, committed by Belarusian senior officials since 1 May 2020.

The IAPB Communication, submitted on 31 January 2025, presents factual and legal analyses of evidence gathered by the IAPB through interviews with witnesses and victims as well as open-source materials available in the IAPB’s collection. It follows Lithuania’s referral of the situation in Belarus to the ICC Prosecutor on 30 September 2024, which 13 human rights organisations, including the IAPB, called on other ICC State Parties to join.

“The referral by Lithuania to the ICC marks an important milestone in the path to justice for victims of crimes against humanity in Belarus,” said Andrea Huber, Head of the IAPB. “Thanks to the resilience and courage of Belarusian victims and human rights defenders, and an IAPB team determined to make a difference we were able to provide substantive information and evidence to inform the examination of the ICC Prosecutor.”

The IAPB’s Communication based on Article 15(2) of the Rome Statute comprises factual findings, including on civilian protests and state response, ill-treatment during protests, arrests, house searches and in detention, other fundamental rights violations, forced civilian departures from Belarus, and human rights violations after departure from Belarus. Legal analysis on jurisdictional issues, the underlying acts of alleged crimes against humanity and the admissibility of the case were also submitted alongside relevant annexes on detention facilities and state structures in Belarus.

The IAPB, a consortium of Belarusian and international NGOs created in 2021, has been collecting, consolidating, verifying and preserving evidence of gross violations of human rights constituting crimes under international law allegedly committed by Belarusian authorities in the run-up of the 2020 presidential election and its aftermath. The IAPB’s database contains over 29,000 documents related to 2,600 Interviewees and over one million of archived open-source records.

In addition to this Communication to the ICC, the IAPB has provided evidence, information and analytical products to five States, UN accountability mechanisms and the OSCE Moscow Mechanism, and has collaborated with lawyers and civil society organisations with the aim of holding perpetrators of international crimes accountable and securing justice and redress for Belarusian survivors.

“In addition to a possible investigation by the International Criminal Court, there remains a pressing need to combat impunity also through national investigations and prosecutions under the principle of universal jurisdiction to ensure that justice is served,” said Huber.  “The Accountability Platform stands ready to provide evidence and analysis to national prosecutors who investigate international criminal law violations in Belarus.”

For more information, please contact: Andrea Huber, IAPB’s Head, on iapb@dignity.dk.