More than 150 people attended the sixth online lecture in the series on transitional justice and international criminal and humanitarian law. At the webinar on 5 May, the participants learned from the Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Anton Korynevych, the concept of an international crime and the category of international crimes (crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, crime of aggression) and how international crimes are reflected in the legislation of Ukraine.
For more than six years, international humanitarian law (IHL) and international criminal law are relevant to the millions of citizens and citizens of Ukraine who have been victims of armed aggression by Russia, because IHL is a set of international legal norms and principles, regulating the protection of victims of war, as well as restricting the methods and means of warfare, and international criminal law provides for individual criminal responsibility for the commission of serious international crimes.
International crimes include the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. International crimes are also referred to as crimes against international law or as crimes under international law. They affect the interests of the entire international community and fall within the jurisdiction of international criminal courts and tribunals, in particular the International Criminal Court.
“At the international level, it has been recognized that the most serious crime is an international crime. It is a crime that undermines the foundations of contemporary international law. It consists of 2 elements and it is its main difference from «ordinary crime» or as they are called common crime, ordinary crime. International crime is essentially two in one: ordinary crimes (core crime) and contextually the element”, Anton Korynevych told at the vebinar.
For example, murder is an ordinary offence, criminalized in article 115 of the Criminal Code. But murder can also be an element of the crime of genocide or a crime against humanity, a war crime. This requires a contextual element. It is decisive in defining a crime as an international crime.
“Of course, the individual must bear individual criminal responsibility for both ordinary and international crimes. But if it is murder as an element of the crime of genocide, it is almost always a life sentence. That is, responsibility for an international crime will always be more serious than ordinary crime”, Anton Korynevych noted/
More on the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, the crime of aggression, their contextual elements, as well as on how these international crimes are reflected in the legislation of Ukraine, please find out via video-recorded webinar.
The webinar presentation by Anton Korynevych on international crimes can be downloaded here: https://bit.ly/3bba0zf.
The organizers of the webinars are the Ukrainian Helsinki Union for Human Rights in partnership with the Office of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. In early April, the first online training with a PhD in Law, Professor of International Criminal Law at the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), Irina Marchuk, presented a foreign experience in transitional justice. The subject of the second webinar was the hybrid court, and in Ukraine could become an effective mechanism for prosecuting war crimes. The speaker was a lawyer, an expert of the Regional Centre for Human Rights, Roman Martynovsky. At the third webinar, the Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine to the CRA, Anton Korynevych, spoke about the application of international humanitarian law, the concept of armed conflicts and their classification. The fourth training was conducted by UHHRU standard-setting expert, Olena Semyorkina, who focused on international approaches to restoring confidence in power as part of guarantees of non-recurrence of human rights violations. At the 5th webinar, Yevgeny Komarovsky, Chief of Prosecutor’s Office of ARK, spoke about transitional justice in law enforcement.
The seventh webinar will be held in the same format on 8 May at 12:00. The speaker will be Kateryna Butsol, Chatham House, Robert Bosch Stiftung Academy Fellow, who will talk about the truth commission: regional and historical dynamics. The announcement of the event and the registration form are already available here.
Following the end of the quarantine, UHHRU plans to continue to discuss transitional justice aspects with lawyers through regional meetings.
Reference. Transitional justice is a system of judicial and non-judicial measures that apply to the transition of a State from an armed conflict to a post-conflict period and to peace through its aftermath and the installation of safeguards, which will make it impossible for conflicts to recur. Areas of transitional justice – reparations for victims of conflict, fair trial of war criminals, truthful reproduction of facts and events during war, institutional reforms for a peaceful future. Each post-conflict country develops its own transitional justice concept and model, adapting foreign experiences and best practices to local circumstances. You can learn more about the Ukrainian concept here: https://bit.ly/2yEriXA. It is being finalized in the working group on reintegration of temporarily occupied territories of the Commission on Legal Reform under the President of Ukraine.
Source: UHHRC website