In the second part of a two-part interview, JURIST’s Managing Editor for Long Form Content James Joseph interviews Professor David M. Crane, the Founding Chief Prosecutor of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone, on solutions and next steps to stabilize the conflict in Ukraine.

Since this interview was undertaken, the US and Germany made the decision to allow Ukraine to strike inside Russia’s territory with US and German-supplied weapons, a move NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg endorsed as “upholding international law and “specifically Ukraine’s right to self-defense.”

Part one of this interview can be found here.

James Joseph: I think that the idea of the multinational court structure is really interesting, not least because of the involvement of the countries and the involvement of many different nations having a stake in that peace process, but also having a stake in swaying Putin into some sort of peace settlement. Where in terms of this do you think the propensity to create change or the propensity to end this conflict will come from? What countries would you be looking at?

Professor David Crane: I think that Europe is already tired of this. I think that the impetus will be Europe. I don’t say to read that as NATO; I’m just talking about Europe, in general. European nations are already wavering, already looking for a face-saving out; they don’t want to go to war. In some cases, they’re incapable of going to war. 80 years’ worth of peace has totally degraded all of the armies in Europe. The only backbone of NATO is the United States. And it’s the only country—and not because I’m saying this is an American but as of reality—that has the real punch to do something about Russia, if it had to go to that. But the US doesn’t want to do it either. They want to see Ukraine succeed. And so again, I think that the push will be of Europe saying, “We won’t let you disappear, we will allow Ukraine to exist,” and even offer them European Union membership, and maybe even eventually, over time, NATO membership. But you have to have Zelenskyy agree to some kind of reasonable stabilization to the point where we can just let things settle down,  and over time things sort themselves out.

That’s why, in my stabilization plan, I have a three-part narrative of (1) ceasefire, (2) disengagement, as well as (3) deconfliction. Whereas a ceasefire would be just tenuous, a couple of weeks just to see if that’s doable, if it is agreed to, then we agree to start in three-month segments to not fire a shot and gradually agree to move away from each other 50 kilometers. So each pulls back 50 kilometers, and you have a 100-kilometer corridor by which we can start putting together a multinational force and then have them inserted. And I think if we even had that, that would really allow things to start to stabilize to the point where we can legitimately sit down and deconflict. In other words, we would have the ability to just meet and talk about the kinds of things that we might want to think about, and maybe over the period of two, three, or four years, sit down and then negotiate a peace. By then Putin may or may not even be in the picture. But at least it also counters someone the idea of someone succeeding them, particularly if we can get a stabilization force in between. It can’t be NATO. It can’t be even a Western country.

And this is where it gives the global south some kind of legitimacy. In other words, we’ve shown them respect, shown them that they can help us sort this out. And so if I were the Prime Minister of India and the world came to them hand-in-hand saying, “We need for you to stabilize this,” it would give them great moral authority and great standing in the world community, which India is looking for anyway. And then nations, like when I was in a multinational force in the Sinai, we had countries from Bolivia, Colombia, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, and other nations that provided both forces as well as equipment. And so that the likes of Brazil, Argentina, India, Malaysia, Singapore—we even had Fiji in our Sinai—the point being is a group of nations, about a dozen or so providing battalion size forces, rotating them in and out with a senior Indian general as the force commander and a distinguished diplomat as the Secretary General of the multinational force, would allow the world to consider peace as opposed to just a ceasefire. So the ultimate goal of the stabilization plan is to eventually have a cornerstone by which legitimate peace talks could be put together over a period of two or three years, because by then there could be a trust, a semi-trust that develops between the two parties that allow them to sit down, as opposed to just posturing and shouting at each other and making unreasonable demands, which will happen in Switzerland in July. After all, I don’t see any way that there’ll be any basis to move forward without stabilization of the conflict as it stands.

But there are just three steps to the stabilization: ceasefire, disengagement (get them away from each other, put somebody in between), and then a deconfliction committee that would hear grievances between the two parties and disallow reasons for the parties to go back in and start swinging at each other again. It would force people to talk out their problems as opposed to reopening them. And once we get that stabilization force in there, it’s going to be almost impossible for the two parties to start lobbing things unless they start shooting over the stabilization force. But, you know, that’s just the reality. It’s possible, but it didn’t happen in the Sinai.

This would not conflict with any kind of multinational court. Again, we have to be very, very careful that, you know, Putin has already been indicted. He is also an indicted war criminal. He’s very aware of that. That indictment is not going away. But he’s going to also be very concerned about this multinational court. But we cannot let the multinational court be held hostage to a ceasefire. In other words, it’s the age-old problem: peace vs justice. We didn’t do it in Camp David. We didn’t do it in Yugoslavia, and we continued with the ICTY, and we can’t do it in Ukraine. The multinational court would be a distinct effort that would be outside the process of obtaining peace. The Council of Europe could be part of creating this multinational court, separate and distinct from any efforts related to stabilization.

However, over time, certainly accountability will be a part of a deconfliction and eventually some kind of peace. By then, Putin will already, if this multinational court concept that we put together actually flies, will already have been indicted by the time a peace accord starts to be discussed sometime two, three, four, or even five years from now. This could take that long just to calm things down. Also separate and partial to that, the reconstruction, rehabilitation, and rebuilding of Ukraine will have to be done separately by all nations who are willing to support that.

You know, rehabilitation and restoration messed up will sink the whole thing if Ukraine demands, “We don’t talk until Russia agrees to reparations and all of that,” that’s well beyond the deconfliction/discussion phase versus just stopping the shooting, everybody just stops in place, and nobody wins, nobody loses. That’s what ceasefires are and then work from there. We did it in Korea. And I think that it could be done here. But again, the reality of this is, is that Zelenskyy can’t agree to something that shows that Ukraine is giving up, and Putin can’t be seen as quitting, even though he started the war. So this is probably the whole stabilization. You know, it could be one of those things where we just put this and blast away until someone gives up.

Joseph: Well, I think that seems to be how this is going to go. But if that’s the way it’s going to work, that’s the way it’s going to work. Because so far, we’ve got so many unwilling or unable states to try and bring this conflict to a close. And of course, there’s talk of Zelenskyy being able to use Western-made weapons to fire into Russian territory, of expanding rather than reducing. What are your thoughts on this?

Crane: Well, within the year, Europe is going to waver and that is not going to be able to sustain the level that they are sustaining now, even though they’re not doing much. It’s really only the United States that is providing the real punch that allows them to maintain some type of viability against the Russian forces. As this thing goes on, Russia’s already lost 500,000, either killed or wounded. They can’t sustain these losses, even though in Russia part of their military doctrine is to keep throwing people at it until they break through. That’s been that way since World War One and World War Two. That’s just how they think.