S05E04: Myko­la Gna­tovskyy on the estab­lish­ment of a Spe­cial Tri­bunal to Inves­ti­gate the Crimes of Aggres­sion against Ukraine

How and why did the idea of call­ing for the estab­lish­ment of a spe­cial tri­bunal to inves­ti­gate the crimes of aggres­sion against Ukraine come up in the first place? Why was it nec­es­sary to call for the estab­lish­ment of a new Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court when there is one already in The Hague? Why can the Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court not inves­ti­gate Rus­sia for crimes of aggres­sion? Under what con­di­tions could any new­ly estab­lished spe­cial court suc­cess­ful­ly pros­e­cute any­one from the high­est ech­e­lons of the cur­rent Russ­ian regime? What is the broad­er sym­bol­ic sig­nif­i­cance of tak­ing such ini­tia­tives today, ini­tia­tives which may not imme­di­ate­ly be imple­ment­ed, but at least bring about a larg­er pub­lic dis­cus­sion about the role of inter­na­tion­al law in armed con­flict? And how will the quest for jus­tice in the face of clear Russ­ian mil­i­tary aggres­sion help the lives of all those ordi­nary Ukrain­ian cit­i­zens who have lost their loved ones and their homes dur­ing this dev­as­tat­ing war? What are the sub­tle dis­tinc­tions between crimes of aggres­sion and three oth­er types of crimes, name­ly: war crimes, crimes against human­i­ty, and genocide?

Guests fea­tured in this episode: 

Myko­la Gna­tovskyy, a renowned Ukrain­ian legal schol­ar who was recent­ly elect­ed to serve as judge at the Euro­pean Court of Human Rights. Before tak­ing up this very pres­ti­gious nine-year appoint­ment at the ECHR, Myko­la was a pro­fes­sor at the Insti­tute of Inter­na­tion­al Rela­tions, Taras Shevchenko Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty of Kyiv. He also advised the Ukrain­ian Min­is­ter for For­eign Affairs on inter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal jus­tice, and was a mem­ber of the Inter­na­tion­al Expert Board on Crimes Com­mit­ted dur­ing Armed Con­flict at the Office of the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al of Ukraine.

From 2015 until 2021, Myko­la served three con­sec­u­tive terms as Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Com­mit­tee for the Pre­ven­tion of Tor­ture and Inhu­man or Degrad­ing Treat­ment or Punishment.

In March of this 2022, he was one of the orig­i­nal sig­na­to­ries, togeth­er with Ukraine’s Min­is­ter of For­eign Affairs and the for­mer British Prime Min­is­ter, Gor­don Brown, call­ing for the estab­lish­ment of a spe­cial tri­bunal to inves­ti­gate Rus­sia for the crime of aggres­sion against Ukraine.