S08E04: Olek­san­dra Matvi­ichuk on Human Rights and Ukraine 

This episode explores human rights in rela­tion to Russia’s full-scale aggres­sion on Ukraine. How do account­abil­i­ty gaps play a role in restora­tive jus­tice? And what are effec­tive approach­es for doc­u­ment­ing loss­es and war crimes so they can be brought to court? Lis­ten for an analy­sis of the cur­rent war in Ukraine and the prospects for address­ing human rights violations.

Guest fea­tured in this episode:

Olek­san­dra Matvi­ichuk is one of the con­tem­porar­i­ly best-known civ­il soci­ety lead­ers in Ukraine. She is a human rights lawyer and heads the Cen­ter for Civ­il Lib­er­ties in Kyiv, which was the co-recip­i­ent of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. Since then, Olek­san­dra has also served as the Vice Pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Human Rights. In 2013, she coor­di­nat­ed the Euro­maid­an SOS ini­tia­tive, which was set up to pro­vide legal assis­tance to the vic­tims of state repres­sion dur­ing the protests against the regime then. In 2021, Olek­san­dra was nom­i­nat­ed to the Unit­ed Nations Com­mit­tee Against Tor­ture.
Between 2014 and ’22, Matvi­ichuk was involved in the doc­u­men­ta­tion of war crimes in the Don­bas region, where Rus­sia has been sup­port­ing sep­a­ratist mili­tias since over a decade. In 2016, she received the first Democ­ra­cy Defend­er Award of the OSCE for exclu­sive con­tri­bu­tion to pro­mot­ing democ­ra­cy and human rights.