 Good morning, everyone. It's my great pleasure to invite you to a roundtable regarding Ukraine and international law. But I love this roundtable. It's about the future or not of international law. And we're very excited here, the work that this department of King's College London that will have a line of experts and very well-known scholars to command and discuss their own taking about the recent developments we had during the last two and a half weeks regarding the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Having said that, about a week ago, the professional juvenile while pleading on behalf of Ukraine, he started saying that international law is not just an empty promise. And what is quite interesting is that we have seen during these last two weeks an over-proliferation of references to international law and a hyperactivity of international lawyers. So here during these one and a half hour, we are going to command to try to assess what does that mean about the future of international law. Now, my name is Maria Verrake. I'm a lecturer in international law at the Word Study Department. I'm very happy to have with me Dr. Veronica Belkova from the Institute of International Relations at the Faculty of International Law in Prague. Associate Professor Dr. Devika Hovel from the Law School, from the Law School of Economics, Law Faculty. Professor Tim McCormack who is joining us from Tasmania, that's why we start so early, who is also about from a well-known IHL scholar, also advisor, special advisor on work crimes to the prosecutor of the ICC. Professor Yuval Sani from Hebrew University and expert in public international human rights law and IHL and also former chair of the Human Rights Committee. And Professor Yanklambers from the University of Helsinki Law Faculty and expert in international organizations. Having said that, I'm not going to take more time from our speakers, so I would like to give the floor to Dr. Veronica Belkova who is going to address first the prohibition of use of force. So before I ask Veronica and the experts, what is their take? So Veronica what do we get out of the prohibition of use of force during the last two weeks? Thank you very much. Thank you, Maria. Thank you for the invitation. Good morning to everyone. I just put my watch on. Really a pleasure to be part of this interesting event. I have been asked to address the question whether what we witness in Ukraine is actually the death or the revival of Article 24 of the UN Charter containing the prohibition of the use of force. And my answer is simple and probably not very surprising, it's neither one nor the other. It's clearly not the death of Article 24. While this provision has been violated by the Russian attack on Ukraine, this attack does not threaten the existence of the provision. Yet at the same time what we witness is not the revival of Article 24, at least if we understand the revival as meaning a return of something which for a long time was neglected or forgotten. And let me explain myself in more detail on these two issues. So first on the death of Article 24. Since 1945, this article has been diagnosed death many times by many persons. By Thomas Frank in his famous article in 1970, by Jean Combeco in the late 1980s, by Frank again in 2003 and by many other scholars with respect to Kosovo, Libya, Syria, Iraq, etc. What all these different diagnosis share is that they rely on three main causes of the alleged death. And in my opinion, none of these causes materializes in the current situation in Ukraine. So the first cause of the alleged death of Article 24 is the disrespect of article of this provision and a large acceptance of such disrespect. States would use force in clear violation of 24 that they would not deny doing so and other states would either remain silent or they would condone such behavior. This is clearly not the situation in Ukraine today. Through there is a violation of Article 24 by Russia. Yet this violation is denied by the responsible state which tries to justify it within the UN framework, within the charter framework. At the same time, this violation is strongly condemned by virtually anyone else in what is probably the strongest wave of criticism of a military action we have ever had since the Second World War. So the first cause of the alleged death of Article 24 is clearly not applicable. So what about the second death, the second cause? Here, Article 24 is allegedly called from within. States resort to an extensive interpretation of the of the two exceptions to this provision that are foreseen in the Charter Self-Defense and UN Collective Actions or in addition, they invent additionally additional exceptions. And this creates so many loopholes that in the end, the prohibition of the use of force simply collapses. Is this what we witness today? I would say clearly not. First, Russia does not really invoke any new exception to Article 24. It seeks to squeeze its action within the self-defense exception. Secondly, Russia partly relies on what actually would be a valid legal ground for the use of force if, however, the factual conditions were met. I'm speaking here about collective self-defense that could be perfectly lawful if, however, Russia were intervening in support of a state not to de facto entities in the eastern part of Ukraine and if it were responding to a previous armed attack. So this justification fails, but it fails on factual grounds. And finally, thirdly, Russia also invokes and that is the only new element preventive self-defense. It argues that Ukraine might become a threat for it in future, especially due to its renewed nuclear ambitions. Now we all probably remember that a similar claim was made by the US with respect to Iraq in 2003. But then this claim was rejected by the vast majority of states and also scholars, not only as factually wrong, but also as legally unsound because preventive self-defense was found to be manifestly incompatible with Article 24. And we witness the same rejection on both factual and legal grounds in the Ukrainian conflict today. So that means that the second cause of the potential death of Article 24 is not applicable either. Finally, we have the third alleged cause of this death. This time the diagnosis is prescriptive rather than descriptive. It is not argued that 24 is death, it's argued that it should be killed. And it should be killed because it constitutes the only obstacle to the use of force that would otherwise, rightly or wrongly, be seen as legitimate. It is the Kosovo-type scenario. There one state allegedly violates fundamental illegal norms, and another state wants to intervene by military force to stop these violations, yet it can't rely on self-defense and the UN system is paralyzed. Since such situations allegedly happen again and again, it's argued that Article 24 should be set aside altogether. And there is a whole debate going on about this argument, but we can happily leave it aside because it's not really relevant for the current situation. True, states refrain from using force in support of Ukraine, yet they do so not because they would face legal obstacles. In fact, the title of collective self-defense is easily available, but rather because they face factual obstacles because Russia is a big power and it has nuclear weapons, put it very simply. So we can see that none of the three alleged causes of the death of Article 24 are applicable in the current situation in relation to Ukraine. Does it mean that the provision has been revived? So do we witness the revival of too far? I would not say so either. A revival in my understanding presupposes that a provision starts to be applied in a context in which it was not applied for a long time. But what is the context here? One sovereign state carries out an open and large large-scale attack on another sovereign state without having an incredibly legal title to do so, and other states react by condemning this attack. Is this really something new that we did not witness for a long time? In my opinion, it is not. Russia's action has interfered with the very core of Article 24, the prohibition of aggressive war, which has never been, at least to my knowledge, seriously questioned. The attack has not, on the contrary, cast any light on what could be called the penumbra of the provision of Article 24. For instance, on the role of non-state actors in under this provision or the possibility of carrying out an armed attack through other than kinetic means, for instance, through cyber means. What we deal with in this situation is a very classical, I would say almost a World War II-like instance of the use of force, and it has never been put into doubt that such use of force remains prohibited. So to conclude, I would say that while Article 24 is crucial for understanding the conflict and the situation in Ukraine, this conflict on its turn does not tell us much about Article 24, and it does not help us to understand it, extend, and its content, and its code better. Thank you for your attention. I'm happy, I've managed to do so, to have the presentation within 10 minutes. Thank you very much, Veronica, for your very timely intervention, and thank you very much also for your critical reading inside. This is very, very useful, and I'm sure we will have many questions on this front. Now I would like to give the floor to Devika Hovel. Devika, I had to write, I read very carefully your regional talk before the General Assembly proceeded with the United For Peace, based on the United For Peace resolution, and I'm looking forward to your understanding, to your reading of the events of the two weeks. Thank you very much. Thank you, Maria. Thank you for putting this together. There's something very uncomfortable, of course, talking about legal technicalities, while I know all of us are watching people fighting for their lives and livelihoods in Ukraine, so I just want to acknowledge that, and that is, of course, at the forefront of our minds. I think with Vladimir Lenin, that said, there are weeks where decades happen, and that certainly feels like it's been the case, and much of it too feels like it's teetered on the existential. So the Cold War has set in again, if it ever stopped, we've reached the end of the end of history, and East and West are once again in the position of cancelling each other out. And what Veronica talked about, sort of highlighted, again, the prediction of the death of Article 24 is this cancel culture that sets in at times of global crisis. So, implicated in this global existential crisis is also the fate of international law, the fate of Yusad Belem, and also its facilitative institution, the United Nations. So perhaps predictably, not only is the death of Article 24 being predicted, but also the death of the United Nations. So just over this weekend, I've seen a victory in the New York Times, while a recent article on the 10th of March in foreign affairs leads with the title, the UN is another casualty of Russia's war, why the organization might never bounce back. The article's author there, Richard Gowan, declares UN diplomacy to be in critical condition, arguing that it is exceedingly remote that Moscow and Washington will be able to use the UN as a channel for global problem solving in the future. Now, certainly the flaws of the UN collective security framework have been on stark display over the past fortnight. Many of you may have seen on the 24th of February, Ukraine's ambassador to the UN appearing before the Security Council, pleading that, and I quote, it is the responsibility of this body to stop the war. He was interrupted in saying that by the current president of the UN Security Council, who clarified, this isn't called a war, this is called a special military operation in the Donbass. And in that moment, the Ukrainian representative was forced squarely to confront the Security Council's Janus face, the Council president through whom the Ukrainian representative was required to direct his plea was none other than the Russian ambassador to the United Nations. So injury followed insult, the draft Council resolution that was to be passed following that debate, seeking to deplore Russia's aggression against Ukraine and calling on Russia to cease and withdraw was of course vetoed by Russia. Now, there's controversy as to whether Russia's veto should have been recognized. Article 273 of the charter provides that a party to a dispute should abstain from voting on decisions. But it qualifies this to charter six decisions. And here we're distinguishing between those under chapter six and those under chapter seven. Those under chapter seven provide for binding enforcement measures which can include measures including the use of force. Now there was seemingly some very last minute negotiating over the the drafting of this resolution. And a late change at the behest of China saw the removal of the chapter seven language. So there's an argument that this resolution was actually converted into one under chapter six. Now only Norway raised the issue of Russia's abstention or purported to argue that Russia should have abstained under article 273 and its veto should be precluded. But this wasn't taken up and Russia's veto was acknowledged and that seems to really be the final nail in the coffin for article 273. So the argument is that that's fallen into disuse its last deployment in the council was in 1960. So the question here is what do we do when the when the World's Council of War becomes a council at war? Again, is this a case where we're seeing basically the breakdown of the United Nations framework? In terms of cancel culture, there are a number of arguments. First of all, it was argued Russia should be cancelled. So there was a brief debate that the Russian Federation was not actually the rightful holder of the Security Council's seat. Advocates of this position referred to the text of the charter in article 23, the reference to the holder of the seat being the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Now, this argument really was given short shrift. It's clear that the other protocols recognize the Russian Federation as a successor to the former USSR. And the law of succession clearly recognizes that the Russian Federation is the rightful holder of the seat. Another argument was that Russia should be suspended from the United Nations. There is a possibility, of course, under article 54, member states to be suspended, but the Security Council has to sign off on that suspension. Rebecca Barber has raised the possibility of refusing to recognize the credentials of the Putin administration, effectively preventing it from representing the Russian Federation in the General Assembly. And she cites the example of South Africa, where in the 1970s, the General Assembly consistently declined to accept South Africa's credentials. And in 1974, the General Assembly president ruled that this meant South Africa was excluded from participating in the work of the UN. Beyond Russia itself being canceled, still others have started arguing for more systemic change in the UN and the international legal order. So in brief, the veto, the council, and perhaps the UN itself should be canceled. We're already seeing calls for a coalition or league of democracies to replace the United Nations and movements encouraging a wholesale defense of liberal democracy are growing. So in December 2021, President Biden convened the first ever summit for democracy, including leaders from 100 governments with the aim of strengthening democracy and defending against authoritarianism. The Cold War block mentality is re-emerging with the added risk of a new front in Asia. Now, this hand-wringing about international law in its institutions is not, of course, uncommon at moments of global crisis. But I want to conclude by just providing three reasons why we might wish the UN and Russia's role within it to endure. The first is to recognize international law as balance of power and the importance of a balance of power in international relations. So we have a formal notion of equality between states, recognized in international law. But in the charter, this gives way to the recognition that some states are more equal than others. So as is well known, the P5 each have the capacity to veto any proposed action by the Security Council. The balance of power installed in the UN framework is a deliberate one. While the Council is given responsibility to address situations of war, it's primary aim, and this is in the UN Charter's opening edict. The aim of the UN is to save succeeding generations from world war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind. So the Council wasn't developed to displace power politics but to institutionalize it. Now, that's not to say that the UN must effectively launder any P5 action, no matter how egregious or unlawful through the implicit promise of Council in action. While the Council structure institutes a balance of power in Council decision making, the vesting of primary responsibility by the Council wasn't intended create a mechanism through which P5 members could simply pursue their own fundamental interests. Rather, my argument here is that in situations where a P5 member is implicated in a threat to the peace or an act of aggression, a balance of power in addressing the issue must be sought elsewhere. So here the General Assembly is the obvious candidate, and as we well know, this is of course what has happened. On 27th February, the Council passed a resolution acknowledging that lack of unanimity among the permanent members prevented it from exercising its primary responsibility and referring the question to the General Assembly. We know that the General Assembly in turn has accepted this responsibility, passing a resolution which in UN terms, I think we can consider overwhelming a vote of 141 states in favor to five against with 35 abstentions. The second brief point I want to reflect on is the role of international law and its role in being a language for disagreement. So rather than the cancellation of international law, the futility of international law, we see law as the language through which we articulate disagreement. So when an individual in domestic settings commits a crime, we don't cast them out of society into some form of median exile, and the same logic should hold where states violate international law. To act otherwise, risks transforming the international community into an anarchic community of states and rogue states. So the current West East divide in international relations will become something more like a West Wild West divide. And as Veronica has pointed out, the point of fact is that Putin didn't break international law aside when he launched the operation but structured his justifications using international law. And that's not to say we should accept his international law arguments, but nor did we accept the arguments raised by NATO states and coalitions when they deployed force to secure regime change in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. These arguments serve as a point of reference when the international community determines whether the legal position or the need for response. My final point is that law provides a justification for coercion. So perhaps more practically international law is we recognize it as a decentralized system. It doesn't have its own army, police force or compulsory system of courts and therefore international law relies for its enforcement on consensus for action. In normal times the Security Council might be available to provide in a more efficient function that consensus. But here we've now given responsibility to the international community at large acting through the General Assembly. And the importance of that is that where action is taken to enforce international law, it carries its own legitimacy that would be lost if the action was justified on grounds of ideology, religion or military might. So international law and its mechanisms has the potential to provide a framework for global action that avoids setting state against state. Thank you very much DeVica. Once more a very excellent intervention. So many things you know you address. I'm sure you know we'll have many questions on that. And on that note I don't I want to do justice. I want to give the floor to Yuval Shanigui who has believed us also a little bit earlier. So from the institutional perspectives I think we move towards the judicial interventions and other issues you know related both to ICL, user force and human rights. Yuval you have the floor thank you very much. Thank you Maria. And I associate myself with earlier comments about the awkwardness of discussing law in times of great humanitarian crisis. Maybe before talking about the institutions and some of the legal processes that have been taking place. Maybe I can say just a couple of words on the also on the use of the Bellum issue. And I wanted to make the observation that to comment about the depth of article 24 or article 51 or the in utility of the UN Charter framework. I find it quite hard to accept these observations because I consider that the problem that we have on our hands is ultimately not a question of international law but a question of international politics. I mean there is a clearly here a mandate to use force in self-defense. There is a mandate here to use force in collective self-defense. I'm not sure that the Security Council resolution even if it would have been if it wouldn't have been blocked would have changed dramatically the authority to use force. It may have had some impact on the sanctions front but we are seeing very strong sanctions actually as strong as we have seen. We have seen also military support which is really dancing around the borderline of what is active participation or not. So again I don't think that this is a case where international law as such is not functioning. The case is that international law or maybe law more general terms has certain political limits when it comes to confront very strong actors and international relations when you are dealing with a nuclear superpower that doesn't play by the rules. I think you have a serious problem again not with the law but with the political context in which the law operates. I mean you could argue that what we were seeing today is a long-term failure of other areas of the law which have have not been successful in promoting nuclear disarmament, have not been successful in promoting a right to democracy, have not been maybe successful on a regional level in integrating the Russian Federation in the west after the Cold War but putting hanging this failure I think on the structure of the law itself I have my doubts. I would say that the law has been to some extent useful perhaps in providing some legitimacy for sanctions and maybe part of the success of international sanctions have to is related to the strong sense that very fundamental principles of international law are at stake and maybe also article five of the NATO treaty is also important in in drawing a line in the sense so to speak so as to contain the scope of the hostilities of course this is something that we will have to see in the future. Another common refrain that we've heard in discussions about this and this has to do with also with the article the death of article two four or the rumors about the death of two four are are to have been made too soon are premature and this is about why are we coming down so as an international community so strongly on Russia and that there hasn't been the same reaction with regard to previous violations and I also think that this is a discourse which is not ultimately persuasive and I would say perhaps two things on that first there are different even within the world of violations I mean it's not an on-off switch there are different gradations of violations and I think what we are seeing in the Ukraine is an extreme violation in terms of the egregiousness and the lack of a plausible justification which which is part of of the reason why the reaction has been so strong I would note in that regard that even with regard to the Russian Federation there is a very different form of reaction that we are seeing here than what we have seen in Georgia in 2008 and in Crimea in 2014 so even within the reaction to the Russian Federation there appears to be a difference that emanates from the scope of hostilities but also perhaps from the pattern that is that is emerging with regard to the other violations that have been cited in the discourse involving for instance NATO member states in 1999 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003 I wouldn't support any of these military operations or acts of hostility but I would argue at least that there would have been a plausible case in all of these instances there has been a plausible case I don't think it's very persuasive but there has been a plausible case that the state that we're using force in these contexts were actually playing the role stepping inside the shoes of the Security Council they were actually taking functions that the Security Council was not able to entertain so that has to do with humanitarian intervention in one context and the disarmament of Iraq in the second context again it's not a plausible argument but I think it's a very different argument from the one that we can be thinking about in this present scenario where it's really it goes far beyond the boundaries of imagination to regard Russia as imposing somehow stepping inside the shoes of the Security Council and so I think there are contexts is important and there are different degrees of not all not all violations are the same with regard to the reaction of the of legal institutions I will say I think there are two issues where two points which are interesting one is the discussion over the crime of aggression I think this is something that has been picking up momentum as we know the ICC statute does have currently a crime of aggression under 8bis but it is not likely to be implemented in the present conflict because of the fact that the Security Council referral is not likely and because both Russia and the Ukraine are not state parties hence the proposal that was raised in some academic circles also enjoying some political support within the UK of establishing a special tribunal for the purpose of trying the Russian leadership for the crime of aggression I think that's an interesting project which I think deals with the idea that the rule of law has to be reasserted and it has to be reasserted vis-a-vis the most the most dramatic the most egregious violations that we have seen here and the most egregious violation that we have seen here has not been the war crimes there are of course war crimes they're serious and it's good that the ICC is investigating them but really seizing the bull by the horn the the great violation that we are seeing is the crime is the is the act of aggression and therefore if we if we are if we would want to use this project to this crisis sorry to to revalidate the project of international law as a limit on naked state power I think going down that path is importantly exploring that than down that path it has I mean in I don't think we have time to really discuss the the very nuances of the proposal I will just know that it is built in part on the fact that the Ukrainian criminal code in itself has a crime of aggression and such a tribunal could be a tribunal which is a mixed tribunal like those who were established before reasonably in relation to Cambodia or Lebanon or Sierra Leone with some support of states or the international community at large there would be questions of immunity but there are always questions of immunity or the practical ability to to bring to justice serving serving leaders and there would also be there are also concerns about selectivity which I think are legitimate but again not overriding I mean you have to start somewhere and the law has been developing and in fact the ICC is that it only has this provision in force for the last four years and and again you have the Ukrainian code to to hang on the final point which I want to make is that another front which I think a legal front which is interesting and so far has not been discussed extensively is the front of human rights courts as you know the previous conflicts that Russia was involved with in Georgia and in the in the Donbas region and Crimea have generated extensive litigation before the European Court of Human Rights it is likely that there will be well we know that there are already there is already an interstate case which has been brought forward by the Ukraine and there will probably be many many individual cases I do know that Russia has indicated its intent to withdraw from the Council of Europe and also from the court but this would only take effect within six months so the cases will be pining up I think an interesting issue that would have to be examined in this question is whether the general comment 36 of the Human Rights Committee which I was involved in drafting would be would be considered in in this specific context and I'm referring directly to paragraph 70 of the general comment which does take the position that in an act of aggression every deprivation of the right to life is an arbitrary deprivation because the illegality of the aggression itself does color the deprivation of life which ensues as an arbitrary form of deprivation and that would actually apply directly both to Ukrainian citizens and military but to some extent also to Russian military personnel who have been in a way indirect victims of this of this unlawful war that has been conducted by Russia again I'm not so optimistic about actually obtaining decisions and compensations from from Russia on this account but I think that this is this is a principle that would be very well to establish maybe just as a final comment and will this I will return the floor to you Maria is that although we have been seeing in this conflict the demise of the Golden Arch theory and numerous commentators have commented on the fact that this idea of Golden Arch theory is no longer plausible although maybe the closing of McDonald's in Russia would resuscitate it but I think we are seeing quite strongly the previous Kantian observation in perpetual peace about the linkage between a republican constitution that is based on on consent of the governed and the and conditions for world peace and and it is actually quite dramatic and quite shattering to see the correlation between the the growing acts of aggression in Ukraine and the growing oppression inside Russia thank you very much thank you very much you value that support many many interesting points and and developments and especially general comment 36 but also you know the final observation about domestic operation in in in Russia and this is something that we do not talk a lot having said that you know in the interest of time I want immediately to give the floor to Timak Kormak who is joining us from Tasmania quite late over there Tim apart for being a very well known professor of international law he's also a special advisor on crime so the prosecutor of the ACC many years now Tim thank you very much for joining us and you have the floor with interesting development before the ACC thank you thanks very much Maria and thanks for the privilege of joining you in London this morning your time the evening my time it's an honor to be on the same panel with Veronica Davika Yaval Yan and yourself let me just explain briefly that the international criminal court does have jurisdiction over genocide war crimes and crimes against humanity although it does not over the crime of aggression in this particular situation Yaval says to explained article 8 this and it's article 15 bits of the Rome Statute that has the jurisdictional constraints about the way the circumstances the limited very narrow circumstances in which the court can exercise jurisdiction over that particular crime but although neither Ukraine nor Russia are states parties to the Rome Statute Ukraine has made a declaration ad hoc accepting the jurisdiction of the court and so on that basis once the prosecutor of the ICC was given approval to open a formal criminal investigation with an unprecedented 39 co-signatories amongst states parties he was able to commit to sending an investigative team to begin that process of formal investigation should say that although I am his special advisor on war crimes I'm certainly not appearing in that capacity I'm participating in this panel in a personal capacity and nothing that I say can be attributed to his office I hope that's understood one important question to make one important observation to make about jurisdiction over war crimes is that all parties to the international conflict are bound by international humanitarian law and by the terms of article 8 of the Rome Statute and serious violations by any of them constitute war crimes and so when the investigation is undertaken it will not only look at allegations against the Russian side I'm not trying to suggest that Ukraine's also perpetrating war crimes just that the investigation will need to be open to evidence that comes to the investigators it's really interesting to me that in the announcement of the ICC investigation opening in Ukraine a whole stack of other organizations multilateral organizations individual states NGOs even different Ukrainian organizations are all attempting to undertake their own investigations or to do whatever they can to help collect and to preserve evidence that might be used in support of any international or indeed any national attempt to prosecute alleged war crimes in Ukraine and I think the level of commitment to that is fascinating we're good to ask why and I'm glad that you've started to ask that question in terms of the nature of allegations that have that have surfaced in the last fortnight they've largely been focused on targeting decisions at attacks on hospitals and medical centers attacks on schools attacks on civilians attempting to flee through ostensibly designated humanitarian corridors on civilian residential areas on nuclear power plants and there have also been allegations of the use of particularly egregious weapons so allegations of the use of cluster munitions in resident civilian residential areas one allegation of the use of thermobaric or fuel air explosive weapons particularly intensive and damaging in a in a built up residential area also been talk of the threat of use of chemical weapons and even the threat potentially of the use of nuclear weapons there are a set of real challenges for international criminal court investigators one of course is to establish the crime base to be able to gather the evidence that proves that certain violations of the Rome Statute were actually perpetrated but in addition to that and I think always more challenging for the investigators is the gathering of evidence about who was most responsible for the alleged war crimes and whether or not we can gather sufficient evidence to mount a reasonable case to prove individual criminal responsibility so linking criminal responsibility to those most responsible for the alleged war crimes often or almost invariably not the physical perpetrators of the offenses themselves is always a major challenge you know in a crisis like this you asked me Maria to to focus on some of the implications for international law arising out of this particular subject matter and I've been thinking about that in preparation for tonight what's the what is the effect of recurrent and relentless serious violation of international humanitarian law the your sin bellow on the normative value of of prohibited conduct if what happens in response to that time and time again is only hand ringing on the part of the international community so condemnation in words without actions to to attempt to try to enforce though that normative framework I think about the Syrian conflict now in its 12th year an appalling and an appalling crisis regularly featuring egregious violations of international humanitarian law the international criminal court with no jurisdiction despite successive attempts by the French through the UN Security Council to refer the situation those attempts being vetoed by Russia and China but there are some states in Germany I think is exemplary in this that have attempted to use universal jurisdiction to try individuals from the Syrian conflict as a way of demonstrating their commitment to this normative legal framework and I think more states should take a leaf out of the German approach to this and and if they're serious about a commitment to trying to reinforce the normative of value of the of the legal framework it seems to me in the current crisis it's it's there's a certain irony that this situation has resulted in unprecedented level of cooperation to support the international criminal court even the US is speaking explicitly about support for international efforts to prosecute war crimes and other international crimes in the Ukrainian context and only last year they were in their own in their own process of total disparagement of the international criminal court over ICC jurisdiction in Afghanistan the unprecedented number of state parties that refer the situation in Ukraine is also a new step and every statement that Karim Khan the prosecutor seems to make is applauded with governments across the board trying to express their support Yival talked about the calls for an ad hoc international tribunal on the crime of aggression and I think it is a really fascinating development given the restrictions and limitations in article 15 bits of the Rome Statute I wonder whether this call and the exploration of the possibilities of it might expose the limitations of that definition and possibly be the catalyst for reform of that particular provision of the of the Rome Statute maybe that's totally naive of me but I wonder whether that might happen but like other speakers before me I also have some misgivings the fact is that war crimes I mean misgivings about talking about this subject matter war crimes are of course being committed every day in many other conflicts many of those conflicts are protracted and and the and the violations are egregious and yet none of them have evoked this level of attention and perhaps Yival is correct in his analysis of why that might be the case giving given the degradation of egregious conduct in the initial invasion of Ukraine I think when we focus on war crimes and I'm not just talking about myself in my capacity a special advisor on war crimes the prosecutor but there's so much media coverage in the last few days on war crimes and the possibility of prosecution and Vladimir Putin appearing before the International Criminal Court I think sometimes the focus on war crimes and on individual accountability hides the reality that terrible suffering is being inflicted because there's a war war and much of that suffering has nothing to do with egregious violations of international humanitarian laws because Russia has chosen to invade Ukraine and people's lives are completely disrupted by that and I think sometimes I try to remind myself not to focus exclusively on the questions of substantive criminality or an individual criminal accountability and lose sight of the context of the suffering in which that's happening thanks very much thank you very much team once more a very reflective intervention and I wish we had so much more time to discuss about that because Yival is going to leave at 11 o'clock I put on on chat that if you have any questions that you want to address to him please write it now I haven't said that I would like to give the floor now to young Trumpers who is going to talk about misogynism and a different institution of international organizations reaction you know to what we experienced the last week yeah and you have thank you Maria thanks thanks to all the previous speakers as well for their considered contributions I learned a lot already my own angle is a bit different as some of you may know I do international organizations law for a living and part of international organizations law is always that international organizations carry the promise of universal peace and since I'm also a little bit of a nerd I thought about a week and a half ago that I should look at the websites of about a number of international organizations and ended up looking at 50 of them to see how they responded initially so this was about a week after the start of the conflict to Russia's aggression so I went through a number of international organizations I went through a bunch of commodity organizations such as the international olive council the international grains council the international cocoa organization and a few more and it will not surprise you to hear that those were just doing their business as usual their websites would list the regular statistics the price development of cocoa worldwide that sort of thing but nothing whatsoever on the conflict I went to the website of a number of regional organizations some of those were not saying an awful lot the Nordic investment bank as it's one of its headlines the issuing of environmental bonds which is what it does a navel the Northwestern Atlantic fisheries organization advertised a couple of vacancies on its websites were nothing terribly exciting there a bunch of other organizations regional organizations though issued statements condemning Russia or expressing concern or expressing concern the African Union expressed concern for African refugees that sort of thing and the only regional organization that I looked at and I did not look at the European Union because I don't consider that an international organization anymore was the the Council of Europe which was discussing a suspension of Russian membership some of the others were interesting the Arctic Council which is chaired at the moment by Russia did not say anything at that time I'll get back to that in a moment and the Shanghai cooperation organization which is Russia and China's vehicle for for something I guess also did not list anything whatsoever interestingly or not and then I had a look at a bunch of universal organizations including specialized agencies most of them were just conducting business as usual with for instance the world customs organization reminding us that it would be World Wildlife Day anytime soon some had a more substantive response UNHCR saying it would be doing humanitarian assistance the World Trade Organization expressing concern for the trade effects the international maritime organization expressing concern for the fate of seafarers that sort of thing the only this is going to baffle you the only international organization of more or less universal scope that was discussing whether to affect the status of Russia as a member state was the world tourism organization of organizations that was the only one that I found that was considering suspending Russia's membership or at least the rights stemming from membership now the nerd that I am decided to do a little random check this morning whether something had changed whether you need all for instance the industrial development organization would still merely refer on its website to the pineapple sector in Suriname which of course is a very viable topic for a conversation so the Arctic Council chaired as I said by Russia this term has suspended itself there shall be no meetings no operations whatsoever of the Arctic Council for the foreseeable future the Shanghai cooperation organization still says nothing its headline was the fight against counter the counterterrorism struggle whatever that may mean in that particular context the world customs organization now issued a statement a sort of guarded statement expressing concern for the situation in Ukraine but without mentioning Russia the international labor organization has a short statement by its director of general condemning Russia the world meteorological organization says nothing whatsoever the UN World Tourism Organization is now organizing a special session to discuss Russia's continued membership and the industrial development organization still discusses the pineapple sector in Suriname now what does that leave where does that leave us that leaves us probably with the idea that the dream of universal peace brought to you by international organizations may not immediately depend on the activities of those organizations perhaps it depends more on their very existence and that has been the theory all along of course that they would create networks of independence which would lurch on to a county and peace ideal and the world would be a better place well maybe I have not disproven that I have no intention of disproving that either but it struck me as rather surprising that of the 50 organizations I looked at only the World Tourism Organization and the Council of Europe were doing something about the status of Russia as a member state having said that the Russians are of course announced to be withdrawing have been reportedly thinking about withdrawing from the Council of Europe and see whether that materializes how that materializes the relevant provisions in the Council of Europe statute I'm not terribly clearly drafted and then I read this morning that Australia and Holland in a related move are taking the downing of the MH 17 really almost a decade ago I think to the Iqau Council which is the executive body of the international civil aviation organization which deals in dispute settlement under article 84 of the Iqau Constitution and that makes you wonder about the timing why now and my possible explanation might be that Holland and Australia have realized that Russia will not have an awful lot of support within Iqau at the moment so this is as good a time as any to bring a case there I stop here and give the floor back to Maria thank you thank you thank you very much for these developments before the international institutions now would like to give the floor before I proceed to Yuval because has to go there is a question addressed to him Yuval you have the floor yes thank you and again apologies to all that I have to leave but that's the nature of such events taking place on short notice so on the question of the linkage between abuses by the west or violations by the west and accountability in Ukraine I think there's obviously a linkage I mean once you start once you start going down the path I mean it's a slippery slope I do like I said before I think there are variations in the level of egregiousness I think this is a I mean a good I mean I think there is a lesson to be learned here about the price the long-term price that one is paying for for working around the rules and this is I think a cautionary tale but having said that it of course doesn't doesn't mean that one has doesn't have to uphold the law whenever it can and that one does not have to reverse trend I think the the reason why we are seeing such a strong reaction here is that this is not only about violation of the law I think there is there is a sense that this is also a strong a violation of something which is very deep about world order and about morality in international relations so I think this is the combination of the three it is actually driving the push to to accountability but of course it is encumbered by by by past instances of unlawfulness and this is of course an unfortunate legacy that the west is carrying with it when it is approaching these sort of issues thank you very much thank you very much I know you have to to give us now thank you very much for your observations there is a question also addressed to you but it's something you know that I will take the floor now and I'm going to talk a little bit briefly as well about the ICJ proceedings and then I'm going to open again the discussion the floor for the question and discussion some questions I will urge you know them the presenters you know to check if they can the Q&A you know so they can see some questions are particularly addressed to them so as you know you know we have also apart from the ICC apart from the european court of human rights apart from developments before the human rights council apart from the initiative that you all you all talk about about the special tribunal aggression for Ukraine and Russia we had also a very interesting development and that was that was the proceeding the application of Ukraine for provisional measures before the ICJ against the Ukraine utilizing you know article nine of the genocide convention that was a very very interesting development and it was interesting about the claim the about the main claim of of Ukraine while they tried you know they brought the the aggression argument via the genocide of jurisdictional clothes now having said that what I want to draw your attention here is very much I think most likely this is what commentators but this is my gut feeling phase most likely the court will proceed with the provisional measures what this was very interesting what was that the Russia did not show up they did not appear however afterwards they were not before they did not participate in the oral hearing however afterwards they submitted their their own file they had their own submission and here you know you can see that both sides they focus a lot on the duty to prevent the duty to prevent the crime of of genocide what does it mean and somehow the course at what extent is related to the usual force to what extent you know state haven't have a duty to prevent genocide by recoursing to military force and we saw that both Ukraine which was quite interesting was represented you know by Professor Harold Cole and purely an American legal team but also Russia somehow they made you know the same argument that there is no use of force when it comes you know to the provision there is no duty of use of force when it comes to the prevention of genocide actually in their sub in the Russian submission we saw that the only argument they use is not genocide and they claim that the reference of genocide by President Putin were just plain references they were not related you know to the normative reference we have in the genocide convention they say our own legal justification for intervening for invading Ukraine was self-defense okay under Article 51 and actually our ambassador before the Security Council you know before the UN informed you know the UN about our legal basis for invading Ukraine so we are going to see what will happen with the usual force this is actually an issue that all students when we teach them you know about the prevention of the genocide convention or when we go they link it to the responsibility to protect but always I was very careful about this legal duty you know to intervene by military force and I think this is a very interesting development that I hope you know that the ICJ you know already sort of that's up on this issue in the Bosnia versus genocide versus Serbia case but I think this is something you know that we are going to see in those proceedings so basically Russia says there's no dispute you know because there is no dispute there's no jurisdiction based on the genocide convention and for us it was not the genocide it was basically self-defense on the other hand Ukraine say there is no use of force you know when it comes to preventing genocide based on misinterpretation and falsification you know of the genocide claim and I stop here now having said that you know I would like again to give the floor to our speakers we can also engage there are some as I say questions that they are addressed to some of them in particular but I would like also we have some time I would like also to engage in a discussion and also for the speakers among themselves I don't know who would like to take the floor maybe maybe Divika can I start with you because there was a question about the Security Council and Russia and see it's on the Security Council is that okay if I start with you yes of course I'm just going to the Q&A so there was a question from Natasha Kirt on the Security Council seat issue isn't it the case that Russia is the continuator of the USSR while the other 11 republics with the successor states which is why they had to apply but Russia didn't as only one state can be a continuation of the UN member state the India-Pakistan case was mentioned so yes you're absolutely right in the case of the Commonwealth of Independent States it was Russia that was the successor states and the other 11 states had to basically apply for membership and you've mentioned the India-Pakistan case so this is taking us back to 1947 where India took over the UN seat and Pakistan had to reapply for membership and so the UN legal council in that case said that the territory which breaks away will be the new state that has to apply so basically in the law relating to succession of the seat there seems to be a differentiation between state continuity state continuity sorry or dissolution so you know when Montenegro separated from Serbia when South Sudan separated from Sudan the former had to reapply for membership whereas the latter continued the seat but if we contrast situations of dissolution so Czechoslovakia for example and maybe Mali and Senegal you had basically a dissolution and the two states having to reapply to the United Nations thanks thank you very much thank you very much Zika team I think there are some questions about IHL but also if I can take the if I can use my privilege here you know I think we have some interesting development when it comes to foreign fighters slash mercenaries allegation you know foreign fighters of the international legion you know we see that both sides you know use invite foreign fighters now there were allegations of mercenaries coming from from Syria and generally you know there is a kind of confusion when it comes to the individual status of those who participate in hostility this is not a new practice however also something that I found very interesting is that the development we've had with Facebook if I'm correct allowing you know exciting violence against Russian combatants from what I understood is there other things you know here that you would like maybe to comment or something you like to say thanks Maria and like I think perhaps I'll start with you on the one's question about civilians in Ukraine and then talk about foreign fighters if that's okay that question got posted quite a while ago so thanks for your patience in waiting for an answer one situation in international humanitarian law is that civilians are immune from attack unless they take a direct part in hostilities there's some uncertainty about precisely what direct participation hostilities means but but it unquestionably includes taking up arms so civilians in Ukraine who take up weapons forfeit their their civilian status that is forfeit their protected status their legal protected status and are legitimate military targets for such time as they are involved in activities that constitute directly participating in hostilities so from a Russian soldiers perspective they don't have to work out precisely what the legal status is of someone who's shooting at them they it is a legitimate use of the intentional killing of that person is excused under this particular law of war and it would not constitute a war crime it's very important thing to understand because we're not talking about a pacif pacified sort of situation here the law permits certain killing and only killing those who have special legal protection constitutes a war crime of murder now in relation to foreign fighters yeah this is a really common feature of many armed conflicts perhaps most of them since world war two and that the well one question about their legal status depends on the circumstances of their involvement so we know that Russia is asking for volunteers and if individuals are volunteering to fight on the side of Russian forces against Ukraine or foreign fighters perhaps some with Ukrainian ethnicity who are volunteering to fight on the side of the Ukrainian military then neither of those would satisfy the definition of mercenary which is quite narrowly defined in additional protocol one to the of 1977 to the Geneva Conventions. Irrespective of whether a person is a satisfies that that quite narrow definition of mercenary they are if they're participating in the fighting whether it's part of the regular armed forces or as irregular armed forces attached to the government forces of Ukraine or the government forces of Russia they would be a legitimate military objective as far as the opposing side is concerned for those who satisfy the definition of mercenaries they are not entitled to prisoner of war status if they're captured by the opposing side but they are as as legitimate military targets as anyone else participating in the fighting so yeah I mean it's a it's a complex area but I think we have to try and simplify it for the for the for the forces actually fighting on the ground it's not a question of having a lawyer with you to decide whether this person is a civilian taking direct part in hostilities or or a combatant. There's also Maria a question perhaps I just go on to this second one from an anonymous participant about the attacks on civil buildings I I understand that to mean public buildings government buildings as well as on civilian buildings and an attempt by the Russians to to justify those attacks. We have in in international humanitarian law a definition of what constitutes a legitimate military objective and it's a sort of two prong definition both elements of it must be satisfied objects military objectives are those objects which by their nature location purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action so if we're talking about a town hall or some other civil building in Ukraine that isn't being used to contribute to the military effort by the Ukrainian side then it is protected from attack it's not a legitimate military objective if it's housing ammunition or troops or or if it's being used by snipers to gain a height advantage to to shoot enemy combatants then it has forfeited any protected states it might have and it can be it can be bombed or deliberately targeted. The second element of that definition is that that is that the partial or total destruction capture or neutralization of that particular objective offers a definite military advantage to the other side and both of those elements have to be satisfied to justify an attack. I'll stop I'll stop Maria. Thank you thank you very much team for that these are very very important clarifications. I want to give the floor to Veronica Veronica could say would like a little bit to respond to one question about the demystification we are very privileged because Veronica comes from central Europe you know and we want also your own input Veronica maybe if I can intervene here I want to ask also about the perception of international law as well because I want to go back to my initial question you know I haven't seen so many references to international law I can give an example but initially the media request where you know our department was more about international politics and then at some stages okay let's go to law you know and I was wondering that there you feel that international law and the role of international law has a different dynamic let's say in in countries of former Eastern Europe you know and how it is utilized maybe you know it compares on to to Russia than what we call you know the traditional former Western countries so thank you for that. Thank you Maria I'll probably start from that last question which is indeed a question for for an independent seminar so I would like to start by stressing that there is not a single center or single Eastern Europe there is not a single center or Eastern European view of international law as I would argue there is not a single Western European view of international law and the same would probably not probably certainly go for all the other regions so there are different views in present in in the same states in the same faculties as everywhere else it's true that there might be some institutions of international law that are more strongly adhered to and supported in some regions but I would argue that it has more to do probably not so much with the historical tradition though this is also one element but probably with the political factor as the factual power of the countries and one of such institutions would definitely be and that's that might sound a bit funny in or a bit sad rather than funny in the in the given context that's the concept of sovereignty that has traditionally been very much stressed and emphasized as crucial by countries especially of Eastern Europe such as the Russian Federation such as Ukraine so it's a bit sad to see Russia trumping up in one of the values it has always stressed as crucial for the international law the same goes for the prohibition of the use of force which has always been a cornerstone of the foreign policy and international opposition of all the countries in the region so much for that then I would like to comment on some other issues one I'm really sorry that you all has left because I found his idea about these different shades of gray of violations very interesting that different violation that we have that violation of the same norm might be considered differently depending on some on some circumstances that we did not have the opportunity to discuss so it would be very interesting to focus on this discussion or to return to this discussion and it might be also very interesting to consider whether these different shades of gray which according to Yuval are present in the violations itself or the violations themselves are also reflected in the reaction and whether there is really a clear and causallying that means a serious violation is always it's always rise to serious reaction or not whether there are other factors which probably play the role for instance who is the one violating the rule and how big a support such an actor enjoys at the international level so that would be the second comment the third one there was an early question I think the second one or the third one here yeah about denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine so let me say a couple of words about that the terms are obviously taken from the the discourse and from statements made by the Russian president Putin and by the other Russian representatives and repeated again and again and I would say that these terms denazification on the one hand and the demilitarization on the other hand are actually the domestic variations or the domestic versions of the two legal arguments presented externally so they are the same thing but for the domestic audience in Russia so denazification would correspond to the first legal title that Russia invokes internationally that means the collective self-defense in support of the two so-called people's republic republics in the eastern part of Ukraine the Luhansk and the Donetsk republics you will certainly remember that three days prior to aggression prior to the attack on Ukraine Russia had recognized these republics as independent states so the argument is that people living in these two originally provinces of Ukraine later on independent states were actually under oppression and violence and even an armed attack from the Kiev government from the Kiev regime which allegedly is full of Nazi people so the denazification means actually liberation of the people of Ukraine especially in these two people's republics but probably more broadly into Ukraine from the current Kiev regime which is not seen as legitimate by the Russian Federation so much for the denazification the other title demilitarization corresponds on its turn to the other legal ground invoked by the Russian Federation that means the preventive self-defense so Russia argues that Ukraine by aligning with NATO by allowing the NATO to operate on its territory and especially by announcing its intention to consider regaining nuclear weapons that by all these Russia the Ukraine constitutes a potential threat for Russia in future so it's necessary to attack once while there is still time and it's necessary to demilitarize demilitarize Ukraine so to make sure that it does not constitute a security threat for Russia any longer so actually the two labels are the domestic version of the legal justification that Russia provides externally and as I mentioned in my presentation neither of these two legal grounds holds in my opinion the first one falls on factual grounds the latter one both on factual and on legal grounds I would leave it at that for the moment. Thank you very much Veronica for this clarification on the answer there is a question about sanctions so Jan would like to to respond about that and there is also a question a final last question about the involvement you know of other states by supplying weapons you know to Ukraine to what extent you know they become legitimate party legitimate parties adversary parties in the conflict so Jan I can give you the floor for the sanctions. Thank you and thanks to Rachel for the question Rachel and I go a long way back so it's nice to be meeting in this somewhat strange setting perhaps the answer would probably be something to the effect that even severe sanctions are most likely not to be regarded as use of force and I built that on two considerations one is the discussions in leading up to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties where article 52 you might recall suggests something to the effect that treaties procured through use of force against the state are null and void and that led to a discussion on what then constitutes use of force and it turned out that the use of force conception in the law of treaties under article 52 would have to be very minimalist that the use of political pressure use of all that sort of things not to be considered force so there's one strand of the argument if it's in the law of treaties not force it's probably not force elsewhere either the other is a the general notion of proportionality that is interwoven in international law and pretty much everything that happens self-defense has to be proportional all sorts of things have to be proportional and one can hardly argue that even severe sanctions would ever cross that threshold when measured against the actual use of force so I would intuitively say it might require some further study but it would intuitively be my position that even severe sanctions will not be considered use of force and those be considered legal in international law Maria do you mind if I jump in here of course the Vika please we find this to be such a fascinating issue and it's potentially a bit controversial to say it but there is a slight issue with these unilateral sanctions because funnily enough any sanctions not issued by the Security Council are unilateral including those for example by the EU so then we're getting into the landscape of countermeasures and as the youngest said that's where we find a proportionality criteria creeping in but another element of countermeasures is that the sanctioning state has to establish itself as an injured state and so there is a slight question as to whether and how states that are not themselves being attacked establish themselves as an injured state and there's also that criteria with countermeasures that fundamental human rights norms need to be satisfied so I'm thinking about sanctioning of oligarchs where I've been engaged in a few discussions about this when blanket sanctions against oligarchs are being proposed and that's suggesting that they might have to be a link established between their capacity to influence Putin and the aggression against Ukraine I just want to throw that into the mix it may I respond to that again yes of course please to add to something the Vika said not to distract from it or to detract from it to maybe this is the point where the doctrine of ethical omnis obligations might actually be of some use that was launched as as you all know by the international court in 1970 and has never been given much hands and feet in state practice except precisely when it comes to justifying unilateral sanctions and remember the sanctions taking you in post against Tuber Slavia in the mid 90s or early 90s which could only find their justification in something like an ergo omnis type of reasoning that's what was happening in Yugoslavia at the time what is happening what Russia is doing right now does not just lead to directly injured parties but also to something a bit more vital a bit more all encompassing maybe vital is not the word a bit more all encompassing than just a direct victim state that that notion of international law being purely bilateral in nature which what the Vika refers to I guess it is very strong but whether it is still completely acceptable is a different story maybe I'll throw that in okay thank you about that and I know there is a question we have a I would say five more minutes King is joining us quite late from Tasmania and there is a questionable of the temporary protection directive that has to do with the European Union and the reception of refugees from Ukraine Patrick he asked this question definitely we're talking about double standards there's no doubt about that I mean the sorry I have to switch on my camera the directive was never actually substantiated activated although it has a directive many years now decades now and there is a there is a discourse there is a debate there is a controversy over there why do we have that for Ukraine why didn't we have that you know for refugees coming from other countries why some states in Eastern Europe you know behave differently when it comes to Ukrainian refugees compared you know to the refugee crisis you know we had in 2015-2016 these are these are valid questions these are questions of policy these are questions of of morality and I'm not going to respond to that definitely you know we see another hyperactivity that's what I wanted to say hyperaction on behalf of many institutions of many kind of regional at least the European Union organization although Jan presented a different picture from other international organizations and this is something that remains to be seen we're going to see we're talking about the biggest refugee crisis within the ground of Europe since 1945 I think we have at least three million people outside Ukraine not to talk about not to mention the internally displaced people who have many many orphans the humanitarian suffering as all of you team Devika mentioned is unthinkable and we still we're here and talk about law which is a bit surreal but we are international lawyers and we try to think of law as a power as a force of good apart from being a power that a force a tool that accommodates power it can be also a tool that can that can accommodate something good and having said that you know I would like to finish by by asking a question you know to all the speakers and this is something that you've all touched upon and I have to say that when I started talking about international teaching international law these last weeks I found myself in a very difficult challenging position trying to convey a message that international law matters we yes they are double standards there was a always a question of what about ISM why in 1999 why in 2003 why didn't we have that reaction Veronica talked about this if I can say the gravity of violations and that goes back you know to this understanding that every time we have a violation of a rule we pay the price and the so-called West is paying the price now you know what happened in Iraq of known so forceful reaction at least in Crimea in 2014 but even before I think it's very important to understand the events of today with with a kind of historical perspective of already 2014 but I was wondering also you know I don't want to leave to finish this meeting with this kind of despair I don't like despair but I was wondering you know whether each of them remaining force speakers would like to to to say a final word you know how do they understand how do they feel about about the position the place of international law and what international law can do actually in a situation like that so thank you if you would like to maybe yes Jan oh dear that is the $64,000 question I guess I think this confirms but that's something that I think both Tim and Yuval already alluded to earlier confirms that that law generally international law is no exception which is more visible perhaps but law generally is not good in times of crisis I think law is extremely good in handling our everyday affairs and facilitating the way we run our lives if there is a certain background condition of more or less stable situation but when the chips are down law is not good that's not just in international law that international law has that problem with crisis you also have that in domestic law if I go shoplifting in my local supermarket and I'm on my own then I might get caught and I would have a problem if I take 300 people with me and we go shoplifting together in that same supermarket then the supermarket has a problem because it can never ever control or all of us together that that's a silly example but you get the point perhaps that law is at its very best when it can facilitate arrange organize regulate our everyday lives and there's plenty of stuff to do there but when it comes to a crisis when someone is really keen on undermining the everyday then law will have a hard time answering it can answer later perhaps it can enter the picture later perhaps when the dust has settled you can figure out who was right who was wrong who should be punished who should not be punished but that the moment itself at the moment itself it's bound to be a little bit frustrating thank you thank you wow Veronica yes I may go on I'm obviously very set about the situation we have in in the region but I'm at the same time very positive about the lesson learned for international law because in my opinion this whole situation confirms that international matters if it did not matter why would so many people be abhorred when one country attacks another country in a clear violation of bigger rules if we look prior to 1945 prior prior to the 1920s when the prohibition of the aggressive war was introduced this happened so many many times and no one really cares there was that was that was maybe stated that was maybe regretted by some people but there was no no common reaction no mobilization of people nowadays we have the biggest mobilization of people we've ever seen at least in in many countries we have the the most extensive sanctions probably ever imposed so this in my opinion shows that people do care about about international law or at least about some of the fundamental rules on which this law is is based and at the same time I would say international law is also important because it provides us with I don't want to say certain tools but probably certain issues which are very important in the current situation the first one and that goes back to my previous comment is the common language and the common standards we can use to criticize these actions we did not have these these common words and common standards in the past and we would not have them without international law so that that's very important and we should not forget that the other one are really legal tools because while international law is not a miraculous system that would solve all the problems of the word in a minute and that would kind of redress all the violations instantly it provides us with certain tools not all these tools are used at the moment I already mentioned collective sub defense against Russia but many of them indeed are sanctions collectives countermeasures and and some of the other tools they don't work recklessly but they seem to work to some extent and again without international law you would not have them thank you Veronica Tim thanks Maria um I've got you you've spoken a couple of times about the exotic location I happened to live in and and part of my sort of sense of this is a little bit of guilt actually that we're we're sort of geographically isolated and therefore don't feel threatened and I know that many of my friends and colleagues in Europe and particularly in Eastern Europe don't don't feel like that and of course the people of Ukraine it's horrendous for them sometimes I wonder if we're really deluding ourselves that law might offer some constraints in the context of war and especially in the face of repeated and egregious violations of it and I guess I the bottom line for me is that well is that a reason to to the give up I mean what's the alternative no no in I'm talking specifically about international humanitarian law what's the alternative no constraints at all so no holds back whatever you want to do is fine so I do agree with some of what Veronica's saying that in this current situation there's a great deal of focus on the violations and there might many of those might be politically motivated we know that we're not seeing consistency in principle positions in relation to other conflicts but um but I'm heartened to some extent by the commitment and the resolve to try to preserve evidence and gather it and hopefully use it to bring some individuals to account as a as as one limited way doesn't it doesn't constitute restitution for the people of Ukraine who suffered all they have but one limited way that the international community can reinforce its commitment to this particular body of law thank you team and to be very brief because I know we're at time but I think despair Maria is probably the right place to end but let me try and be a bit more upbeat because I think the thing about despair about international law is that it can have this paradoxically invigorating function in the development of law in the sense that we don't know the value of our legal principles unless we subject them to this vigorous debate and contestation and so I just think of the example I was in New York for the 2017 ICC assembly of states parties where they were debating giving the ICC jurisdiction over the crime of aggression and it was very clear the UK and France was seeking to obstruct the ICC getting jurisdiction over the crime of aggression now we have a situation where within the UK we've got certain well Gordon Brown a former prime minister leading the charge to set up a special tribunal on aggression and Tim has mentioned the invigoration of this notion that we need potentially access to this crime of aggression where that that is the supreme crime here again as Tim has said there are war crimes of course there are but the bigger crime is this actual aggression thanks very much thank you all thank you all very much and I think they muted me already can you hear me I can hear you can hear me okay I thought I was muted already because we are fine yeah okay thank you all very much I wish we had more time about these discussions you know I really think that was a genuinely reflective session you know we try to understand all of us you know with critical input what are those activities mean and I want to leave the audience I want to thank all of you for participating and I want to thank all the people you know who attended this session and to leave all that note you know not not a pure note of despair but you know things happen you know and maybe not immediately you know but there is there is something there is a positive force over there you know I don't I want to always to try to convey a message of critique to be critical to my students but not cynical and I think this is what we try to do today very much and I want I would like to thank you for being with me on that very short note you know thank you all thank you all very much thank you for participating and look forward to seeing you in person bye bye thank you all very much bye bye thank you thank you