Russia's War of Aggression Against Ukraine - International Conference - Instytut Pileckiego

Join us and an impressive line-up to reflect on Russia's Invasion of Ukraine and its implications for international law

"Russia's War of Aggression Against Ukraine. Challenges of Prosecuting and Documenting War Crimes" - International Conference

Organizers: The Pilecki Institute in cooperation with Zentrum Liberale Moderne 

1-3 February 2023 | Pariser Platz 4A, 10117 Berlin | Register here: https://forms.gle/PiXqzHpowFZgnJLeA

Conference Programme

The agenda of the conference (PDF) includes a multimedia installation:

SHARDS OF UNJUDGED CRIMES
Multimedia installation, author: Jakub Kiersikowski. 

Each day of the conference between 10 am - 6 pm, in the basement of the Pilecki Institute in Berlin (Pariser Platz 4A).

This multimedia installation was created from selected film testimonies and materials collected by the Lemkin Center. It presents the accounts of witnesses who experienced Russian captivity, torture, and scorched earth tactics in the Kiev region, and the bombing of civilian infrastructure in Mariupol. 

By its very scope and nature, the war against Ukraine - the largest armed conflict in Europe since WWII - challenges our thinking about international order, war, freedom, post-war justice, and the role of eye witnesses. The conference approaches the war and its consequences from historical and legal perspectives and invites interdisciplinary debate on the nature of the war, the best responses to Russian war crimes, and how to effectively prepare for the challenges of post-war justice.

The assumptions of the war crimes settlement model, adopted in 1945 by the Allied States, and the problem of differing experiences and memories of WWII in Eastern and Western Europe will be a point of departure. Analyzing the development of international criminal law after 1945, we will discuss the factors determining the effectiveness of international justice, focusing on the available means of national and international law to pursue criminal accountability for Russian crimes in Ukraine.

We will furthermore present initiatives to collect evidence and witness accounts of Russian aggression, which have the value of historical testimony as well as of evidence for future post-war trials. The atrocities which these witnesses have experienced from the Russian invasion is the newest phase in a long history of violence that has shaped the history of East-Central Europe through the 20th century. The conference aims to investigate the causes of this violence, its impact on the region and ways to bring it to an end.

A further task of this conference is to shed light on differing historical narratives, perceptions and political approaches in Eastern and Western Europe. Renowned scholars, civil society activists and policy analysts from Ukraine, Germany, Poland, the US and the UK, among others, will have the opportunity to discuss different perspectives on how to approach the war and the crimes committed by Russia, how to address the issues they raise, and how to shape a more robust international justice in the future.

Download