1st Edition
The Russian-Ukrainian Conflict and War Crimes Challenges for Documentation and International Prosecution
This book offers a multidisciplinary examination of the international crimes committed in the Russia-Ukraine War, and the challenges of their prosecution and documentation.
As the largest international armed conflict in Europe since World War II, Russia’s war against Ukraine has provoked strong reactions and questions about the post-1945 world order, the utility of the war, and the effectiveness of international criminal justice. Throughout the chapters in this volume, scholars and legal practitioners from Canada, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, the UK and the United States present the results of interdisciplinary research, insights from the perspective of other post-communist states, and first-hand expertise from directly working on the documentation and prosecution of these crimes. This offers a broader picture of post-Cold War relations and sheds light on the roots and nature of the war and the importance of regional approaches. The chapters also present some possible responses to the crimes committed in the conflict, with a focus on a victims-centered approach to transitional justice.
This volume will be of interest to students of international criminal and humanitarian law, security studies, peace and conflict studies, and Eastern European history.
Introduction: The Rocky Road to Justice: Efforts to Document and Prosecute Crimes in Ukraine from a Historical and Legal Perspective
Patrycja Grzebyk and Dominika Uczkiewicz
Part 1: The Soviet Legacy and Ruskii Mir
1. War Crimes in Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine:The Soviet Legacy and the Wellsprings of Moscow’s Disregard of International Humanitarian Law
Mark Kramer
2. Historical Soviet and Contemporary Russian Criminal Acts Against Ukrainians Under the UN Genocide Convention of 1948: A Comparative Analysis
Tomasz Lachowski
3. The Crime of Genocide: Historical Aspects, Political Discussions and Memory Laws in Ukraine
Yurii Kaparulin
4. In the Span of a Hybrid War: Engaging Post-Truth in Shadowing Russian War Crimes
Kseniya Yurtayeva
5. A Nuremberg for Communism?: Unified Germany, International Law, and the Idea of a Tribunal for Stalinist/Soviet Crime
Annette Weinke
6. Putin’s Youth and the TikTok War: Creating the Militarized Self in Russian Adolescents
Ian Garner
Part 2: Crimes in the Ukraine War and Their Documentation
7. Russia’s War Crimes in Ukraine as a Tool of War
Agnieszka Bieńczyk-Missala
8. Digital Evidence in Investigations Concerning Russian Crimes in Ukraine
Hanna Kuczyńska
9. Ethical and Methodological Challenges of Documenting the War: Recording Testimonies of Ukrainian Witnesses After February 24, 2022
Anna Wylegała
10. The Center for Civil Liberties: Chronicler of Crimes Committed After Russia's Invasion of Ukraine
Roman Nekoliak
11. Witnesses to the War: The Raphael Lemkin Center for Documenting Russian Crimes in Ukraine as a Case Study
Aleksandra Konopka and Krystian Wiciarz
12. Precedents for Ukraine: Experiences of the UNWCC of Documenting War Crimes
Dan Plesch, Jacob Thaler, and Dominika Uczkiewicz
Part 3: Prosecution of Crimes Committed in the War in Ukraine
13. Ensuring Fairness of War Crimes Trials in Ukraine
Gaiane Nuridzhanian
14. Prosecuting International Crimes in Ukraine: The Role of Ukrainian Domestic Courts
Oktawian Kuc
15. Polish Involvement in Prosecuting International Crimes Committed in Ukraine
Bartłomiej Krzan
16. Prosecuting War Crimes in Ukraine: The German Contribution
Stefanie Bock
17. The Ukrainian Struggle for Internationalization of the Problem of Punishment of the Crime of Aggression
Anton Korynevych
18. Accountability for Russian Imperialism in the Global East: The Special Tribunal for Aggression from a Post-Colonial Eastern European Perspective
Patryk I. Labuda
19. Ukraine and the Investigation of Systemic War Crimes: Learning from the UK's Investigative Failures in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars
Andrew Williams
Biography
Patrycja Grzebyk is Associate Professor at the University of Warsaw and a specialist in public international law. She is the author of Criminal Responsibility for the Crime of Aggression (2013) and Human and Non-Human Targets in Armed Conflicts (2022).
Dominika Uczkiewicz is a lawyer, historian, and Assistant Professor at the Centre for Totalitarian Studies at the Pilecki Institute in Warsaw. Her recent publications include Polish and German Perspectives on Transitional Justice: World War Two and its Aftermath (2021; co-edited with Wolfgang Form).
