The Ukrainian Bar Association published its second report on its project to monitor war crimes proceedings on Wednesday. This project aims to suggest improvements to war crimes trials in Ukraine amid Russia’s ongoing offensive in the country.

By collaborating with the International Bar Association and its Human Rights Institute, the Ukrainian Bar Association focused on the seven rights that must be protected during the trials: the right to access to court, publicity and openness, trial within a reasonable time, the right to defence, proceedings in absentia, the right to translation, and the right to liberty and security of person. They did not find any infringement of those rights.

As a general conclusion, the paper found advances in the fields of verdicts, reasoning and reasonable time for courts to consider the cases. At the same time, it required the improvement of a unified database and search engine for proceedings of war crimes, education and training about war crimes for judges, and support for lawyers. The introduction of campaigns and supply of psychological assistance for a lawyer was strongly recommended because lawyers with absent clients often face difficulty.

Furthermore, in the substantive part, the association made a warning for courts using the Rome Statute as a source of international law in order to establish war crimes under the Ukrainian criminal code. Since Ukraine has never ratified the former, such a reference would be contrary to the provision of Article 438 under the criminal code. Therefore, the publication instructed judges to use the statute merely as an additional documentation for qualification under domestic law.

This second investigation was executed from December 2023 to May 2024 by the Association of Lawyers of Ukraine. The team monitored in person over 600 cases adjudicated in some regions of Ukraine, and its result was presented in June.