Putin's cabal must be brought to trial for crimes in Ukraine. With this plan, the world can do that | Gordon Brown

A special tribunal akin to Nuremberg will not only force Russia to explain its culpability, it will show how vital it is to uphold international law Vladimir Putin should be worried. Not since the trials of the Nazis at Nuremberg and the Japanese war criminals in Tokyo have so many world leaders made common cause to bring to justice the perpetrators of crimes that have brought terror, death and misery to defenceless millions. The decision to prosecute Putin’s cabal for the crime of aggression, reached this month after an agreement between the Council of Europe and the European Union, is historic and offers hope in an age of chaos and fracture. This special tribunal is a mechanism of practical intent but, more than that, it is a statement: that there will never again be any hiding place for those guilty of war atrocities and the needless destruction of civilian life. It will target those in the president’s inner circle – the generals, bureaucrats and functionaries – who have planned Russian aggression in Ukraine. Justice might have been delayed for the four years since Ukraine was invaded, but it is no longer being denied. And now the Russian war machine has to explain its c