The international community must make every effort that perpetrators of war crimes in Ukraine are held accountable, Lithuania’s justice minister said at a conference held in Vilnius.
Participants of the international conference on Friday are discussing how to ensure that the leaders of Russia and Belarus, Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko, are held individually criminally responsible for war crimes in Ukraine.
“Today, as we meet in Vilnius, reality demands the unity of the entire international community,” said Justice Minister Evelina Dobrovolska. “Russia’s absolutely clear act of aggression against Ukraine has rewritten the history of our generation.”
With the war in its third month, the world has been witnessing “terrible breaches of international peace and security, planned and carried out not by some abstract entities, but by Putin and Lukashenko and their associates”, according to Dobrovolska.
“Expectations for justice are already very high, and we must make every effort to ensure that the international initiatives we have launched do not fail,” she said, referring to the so-called Hague Process initiated by Lithuania and pre-trial investigations launched by the Council of Europe’s countries into crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The conference in Vilnius features Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown delivering speeches remotely. In-person participants include Vytautas Landsbergis, Lithuania's first post-independence leader, and others.
The topics of discussion include “why a conviction for a crime of aggression is vital for the survival of the international community and the possibility of persecution for this crime” and “legal mechanisms in the context of Russian aggression”, the Lithuanian Justice Ministry has said.
Participants will also discuss whether there is room for the establishment of a special tribunal, what role the International Criminal Court could play, and the prospects for national investigations launched into the crime of aggression in Ukraine.
Lithuania was the first country to initiate the Hague Process under the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court. The initiative has been joined by other countries in Europe and worldwide.
The Lithuanian Prosecutor General’s Office has opened a pre-trial investigation into an alleged crime of aggression committed by the Russian and Belarusian governments against Ukraine.
The Justice Ministry also proposes to establish a special tribunal in the European Union to ensure that the Russian and Belarusian leaders are held criminally responsible for the aggression in Ukraine.
Newsletter
Every Friday morning.
