 Good afternoon and I'm pleased to welcome all of you who have tuned in today for this very interesting webinar in the Institute. I just want to give a little bit of housekeeping to you. You'll be able to join in the discussion using the questions and answers button on the zoom function and that should be coming up on your screen and please feel free to send in your questions during the presentation. If they, if you think of a question you want to ask, and if you could give your name and your affiliation or your organization that you're representing and when Mr. Hammer and has finished his presentation, then we will go through to the question. We're delighted today to be joined by Ladislav Hammer and who is president of your adjust the EU agency for criminal justice, and he has very kindly taken time to talk to us today. And just briefly because sometimes people are a little there's so many institutes in institutions in the EU just briefly to tell you that you're adjust EU agency for criminal justice cooperation it's based in the Hague, and it brings together national judicial authorities who work closely to fight serious cross border organized crime. All the EU members are entitled to send somebody to your adjust, but also 50 non EU countries have also sent liaison officers liaison prosecutors actually to work with your adjust. And so it is a very widely based organization. I mean when you look at what history shows us that lasting peace can't come and survive without justice and reconciliation, and that justice and reconciliation cannot come without a collective effort that drives them and offering an inside view today Ladislav on judicial cooperation in response to armed conflict. Ladislav Hammer and will discuss the shape and form in which prosecutors and judges work together across borders in fact, as recently as the 22nd of Ladislav met with the President Mr can of the International Criminal Court to discuss what my cooperation about what has happened in Ukraine. Just to briefly tell you that Mr hammering has been president of your adjust since November 2017, having been reelected for a second term in November 20 and I always think that's a very good sign of confidence in a person. He's a prosecutor and over 20 with 20 years experience, particularly in cases involving economic crime corruption and asset recovery, very much part of the language now justice systems, following his legal studies at the Faculty of University in Bratislava. Some of you may have visited there. He joined the general prosecution office in Bratislava in 2003. And then he was seconded to work in your adjust in 2007 so you can see from that ladies and gentlemen, that we have a very experienced person here today as president of your adjust. And I now I'm going to hand over the floor to Ladislav Hammer and thank you. Thank you so much, Nora. I'm really delighted to hear all those nice words of welcome and good afternoon from the heck, ladies and gentlemen. I'm very grateful to the Institute of the International and European Affairs for this invitation, and for its hospitality, even if only online today. I know that the Institute has a very rich tradition of organizing these seminars. So it's a pleasure and honor to contribute to this series. I believe these these lectures also add to the widely recognized European standing of the Institute, and I learned that David O. Sullivan will join you as the new director general, which is something I believe will further bolster the Institute's European DNA. When I received this invitation, my idea was to discuss the past 20 years of European judicial cooperation and what the way forward may look like. After all, 2022 is the year in which your just and the European iris warrant mark the 20th anniversary, but then reality caught up, or more precisely, history caught up when war reached the European continent again on the 24th of February, and on that day, the world woke up to a new reality. The armed conflict in Ukraine is, of course, a tragedy of unimaginable proportions. It's a crisis with many different dimensions from politics to economics from the safety of supply chains and possibly also to the future of the European Union as we know it. But this conflict has a judicial dimension as well, which led me to decide to dedicate this lecture to how prosecutors contribute to delivering justice in the shadow of armed conflicts. It has been five weeks since the start of the Russian invasion, and partly due to the geographical proximity of Ukraine, European prosecutors were very quick to take action. On 24th of February, the competent authorities of Ukraine started a criminal investigation for, and I now quote, intentional acts committed to change the boundaries of the territory of the state border of Ukraine, which led to the death of people and other serious consequences. Only four days later, on 28th of February, Poland was the first to launch an investigation for the crime of aggression based on its own criminal code. A few days later, the Lithuanian prosecutor general's office followed and started a pretrial investigation for three crimes, which were, and again I quote from the decision, the crime of aggression, treatment of persons prohibited under international law and prohibited military attack. As things stand now, eight EU countries have opened criminal cases in relation to alleged war crimes in Ukraine, including the three Baltic countries, Germany, France, Slovakia, Poland and Sweden. In addition, and after referrals, it received from 41 countries, the prosecutor's office of the International Criminal Court, two has opened an investigation into crimes falling within the jurisdiction of the ICC, starting from 21st November 2013 onwards, which could then theoretically include events in the Donbass War in 2014. And it's good to see things move forward, as some of you probably know, only Friday last week, Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine signed an agreement to establish a joint investigation team. If you hear from me further, this means joint investigation team to look into alleged core international crimes in Ukraine and to start collecting evidence. In fact, the fact that one month since the conflict started, eight EU countries, two non-EU countries and one international organization have initiated their investigations into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity, committed on the territory of Ukraine, is already, in my opinion, a remarkable achievement. As we say, a journey of tons of miles begins with one step, and while we are still very far from convictions, we have to recognize that opening criminal investigations by prosecutors is the famous first step on a long journey towards convictions. We have to also acknowledge that unlike in some armed conflicts in the past, today, individual states appear not as hesitant to exercise the universal criminal jurisdiction. For those not so familiar with the concept, let me explain that universal jurisdiction, in its purest form, it's a criminal jurisdiction based solely on the nature of the crime. Without regard to where the crime was committed, the nationality of the perpetrator, the nationality of the victim, or any other connection to the state exercising its jurisdiction. And it's extremely useful to have this, but a legitimate question pops up nevertheless, why would countries exercise their universal criminal jurisdiction when the ICC already announced the start of an investigation? In that respect, it's important to keep in mind that according to the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court in 1998, it's the duty of every state party to exercise its criminal jurisdiction over those responsible for international crimes. The Rome Statute also emphasizes that the International Criminal Court shall be complementary to national criminal jurisdictions. Or put it in simple words, it's the obligation primary of states to make sure that international court crimes don't go unpunished and the jurisdiction of the ICC is only secondary. It should only come in when states fail to prosecute those responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. In fact, that a state initiated an investigation in poor international crimes is however not an obstacle for the ICC to launch its own investigation. I would say that on the contrary, it's a guarantee or an extra layer if you will to see that those responsible for such horrendous crimes will be prosecuted. The ladies and gentlemen, although the principle of universal jurisdiction dates back to 1948, the principle has so far been applied by individual states rather sporadically or to be fair even inconsistently. From a pure legal perspective, however, this should not come as a surprise. Core international crimes such as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes are by nature very complex, expensive, resource demanding and the outcome of the investigations is often very uncertain. There are often also more practical problems related for instance to evidence gathering, which can be difficult as investigative authorities are sometimes prohibited from working in the states where crimes were committed. Or even worse, often gathering evidence from a conflict zone or a battlefield can even pose a threat to the life of prosecutors and investigators. Adding up all these challenges with procedural obstacles, language barriers, costly witness protection programs, it's unfortunately no surprise that prosecutors and investigators simply think twice when applying the universal jurisdiction. And still organizations such as Trial International and NGO Fighting Impunity for International Co-Crimes in 2020 reported 30 ongoing trials in 18 countries for 76 war crime charges, 81 crimes against humanity, 40 tortures and 18 crimes of genocide. This is a clear sign, ladies and gentlemen, that the prosecutors and war crimes specialist in particular do not look the other way. On the contrary, prosecution services in many countries open investigations and are ready to take up the challenges. As a European, I'm very proud that the most national investigations into core international crimes were opened by EU member states, with France and Germany having a leading role here. To illustrate this better, let me share with you a recent French-German case to prove my words. Earlier this year in January, we have seen a very good example of what universal jurisdiction is capable of. Some of you perhaps remember the Koblenz judgment when a regional court in Koblenz in Germany sentenced a former Syrian high-ranking official to life imprisonment for his involvement in crimes against humanity. It was a case in which two former Syrian officials were arrested while in Germany in 2019. The highest ranking official of both, who was the head of an investigation section in the Syrian intelligence service, was held directly responsible for the death of 27 members of the opposition to the regime in 2011 and 2012. This begs the question of how this could be done, how did the prosecutors obtain the evidence they needed? Who were their international partners? Before answering these questions, let me say that this case is interesting from at least two reasons. First, because it was the result of an intense cooperation between German and French investigators who joined forces in what we call a joint investigation team supported by Eurojust. With Eurojust support, this JIT was provided by long-term analytical assistance and by organizing regular coordination meetings with the participants to exchange and prepare evidence. On a second reason, and the second reason is because of the evidence itself. How did it reach the investigators? Who collected and stored it? In this case, the body of evidence mainly came from what we call the Caesar files, which is a database or a collection of some 26,000 pictures of and documents on the torture of victims in mass detention centers organized by the Syrian regime. These pictures were smuggled outside Syria and then obtained by what is called the Caesar files group based in Germany, which is a voluntary and non-profit organization. They stored these files and linked them up with metadata or on, for instance, times, locations, torture methods, and at times witness statements. What then happened is that a representative of the Caesar files group provided prosecutors in Germany with a set of high resolution images and matching metadata, which formed a strong basis for the prosecutors to work on. What we see is that information was successfully translated into admissible evidence before court, and this is no small feat since courts and judges, for, of course, good reason, consider the chain of custody of evidence in order to address the reliability and validity of evidence. So in the interest of impunity, I think we all owe a debt of gratitude to those who pushed all the work that led to the Koblet's judgment. It was the first time, word-while, that a high-ranking Syrian official was convicted for crimes against humanity, and we can only hope that it will leave a lasting mark on international criminal justice. So I hope that, with this, I was able to shed a bit more light on the principle of universal jurisdiction and demonstrate that it can be a very powerful weapon in the hands of prosecutors, of course, if used wisely. But let me now guide you back to the armed conflict in Ukraine. From the very outset, let me say that our judicial response is very different from anything we have seen before. In the past, it was sometimes difficult to find a state which was ready to allocate financial and human resources to start war crime investigations. Today, the problem is exactly different. We may actually have more actors involved than we can manage. We have states, international organizations, European agencies such as Eurojust, Europol, Frontex, EU agency for asylum or fundamental rights agency. Different networks of practitioners are involved like the genocide network hosted by Eurojust, civil societies, NGOs and private sector. And in addition, there is a number of working groups, task forces that operate at national, regional and international level, covering very different angles of the armed conflict. So on the upside, it's clear that we are united in our ambition to get justice done. But we also need to be coordinated. Indeed, coordination of all these efforts at the national EU and United Nations level is simply essential. Additionally, centralizing or at least harmonizing information flows in a decentralized EU environment will be another critical success factor here. And this is where the ladies and gentlemen, I wish to mention Eurojust, the agency of EU for criminal justice cooperation, which I have the honor to represent. With the 20 years experience we have, Eurojust is uniquely placed to play a central role in the coordination efforts, connecting the dots between different initiatives. And this is what the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council on 4th March called us to do. A very specific tool, an example of effective operational coordination, is something what I mentioned earlier. It's the joint investigation team. Working through a joint investigation team brings many advantages, such as letters of request between states are no longer needed. A joint investigation team saves time and efforts of police officers, investigators and judicial authorities involved. The evidence that is gathered is available to all JIT members immediately. Information sharing happens quick and easy. As I mentioned, police and judicial authorities are involved in the same time, together with Eurojust and Europol. And with Eurojust, we provide different types of support to joint investigation teams. We provide legal expertise to the team. We can offer trainings to investigators on topics such as interviewing refugees and witnesses. We also provide all the financial and logistical support to joint investigation team by offering meeting venues, interpretation, translation of evidence, all sorts of IT equipment and covering for travel costs. Working on international cases of this scale will always be very expensive. And let us be very, very honest. The vast majority of prosecution services in the EU, but I dare to say even beyond, simply do not have enough financial and technical means to work with their partners effectively. So this is also where Eurojust come into play, so that a lack of resources won't be an obstacle on the road towards justice. And this is what we also want to do in the case of Ukraine. Up until today, the Ukrainian prosecution service documented more than 3,000 events that in their view constitute crimes of aggression and war crimes. This will require an investigation and resources of huge proportions. Where to start with this? Let us first think of evidence. While the majority of critical evidence is on the Ukrainian territory, many victims and witnesses have fled the country and offered their statements abroad. On top of that, there are photographs, videos, satellite images, intersections, social media posts or even military intelligence information, which can also be located outside of Ukraine. So international judicial cooperation has probably never been more important than it's today. And this, ladies and gentlemen, leads me to say a few words also on the International Criminal Court, the ICC. As you perhaps have seen, the ICC prosecutor, Mr Karim Kan, has earlier expressed his intention to join the joint investigation team into alleged war crimes in Ukraine. Legally speaking, this is a rather uncharted territory, if I may say so, but I believe there is a solid legal basis, nevertheless, for including the ICC in the work of the joint investigation team. Article 93 of the Rome Statute lists the investigative measures that the ICC is empowered to request from the states. This is about taking evidence, including testimonies, questioning of persons under investigation, etc., etc. And while it's true that setting up a joint investigation team is not explicitly listed there, Article 93 of the Rome Statute stipulates that the state parties will comply with a request from the ICC in relation to any other type of assistance, which is not prohibited by the law of the requested state, with a view to facilitating the investigation and prosecution of crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC. So, without going to more detail, our analysis simply shows that the ICC can indeed request the member states joined in the joint investigation team to join their team. And considering the patchwork of initiatives, I believe this could be very useful to ensure full coordination between EUs and ICC's efforts, avoiding duplication and making optimal use of each other's expertise. But this is not very dense. From the wide range of actors I mentioned before, let me also briefly focus on civil society organizations and NGOs, as they have been playing a crucial role in armed conflicts, also in the identification, collection and storage of evidence. I think it's fair to say that they have become increasingly professional in the work they often do, and we should be very grateful and thankful to them. At the same time, however, they face a number of recurring challenges, which can be hard to address, such as ensuring safe storage of evidence physically or digitally, and seeing after a secure chain of custody of all the information they receive. And when it comes to evidence, this is what is so critical. This is the admissibility of the evidence before court. Will a judge accept the evidence? Can he be reasonably sure of its legality and reliability? This is what it will boil down to in the end. The situation in Ukraine is also different from, for example, Syria, in the sense that we have both Ukraine and EU member states actively investigating and collecting evidence themselves. Against this background, I believe that the contribution of civil society organizations and NGOs would be most effective when they focus on the identification of victims and witnesses. The judicial response to the Ukrainian conflict is different from another point of view as well. It's not focusing on war crimes solely, however, there is another dimension related to seizing and freezing the assets of Russian and Belarusian individuals and entities that they are on the EU sanction list. So this might be a particular challenge for the judicial authorities in the EU member states, as EU sanctions do not have and cannot have punitive effect. They are only meant as temporary means to change actions and behavior. Therefore, frozen assets subject to EU sanctions do not automatically constitute a legal title for confiscation of property. That will be perhaps an entirely different story altogether. Dear chair, dear ladies and gentlemen, with all they said, and I'm mindful also of the time, I think it's time for me to draw some general conclusions. One thing I often think of is saying you all know too well, namely that justice not only must be done, it must also be seen to be done. And more even than on a national scale, international criminal justice cooperation comes with a special set of challenges and opportunities. Now, looking back, I see a huge progress in the right direction. Over the last 15 years, there has been a constantly growing number of cases in which the principle of universal jurisdiction was activated. Despite many challenges and obstacles, and despite many frustrations victims have to suffer, we do witness results. And now with the war in Ukraine, we see that European prosecutors are willing to go the extra mile and engage in pioneering work to test new concepts and models before national courts. I also want to point out that fighting impunity sits high on the EU political agenda. And I realize that this year's 23rd of May, which is the EU Day Against Impunity for Genocide Crimes Against Humanity in War Crimes, will have, for many of us, a completely new dimension. But ladies and gentlemen, I finally observe unity in the EU community. The EU is united in addressing injustice, a blatant violation of the international public order, and the international humanitarian law by means that, in my opinion, fit the 21st century and other European values through means of rule of law. You may remember the few lines which you, Chair, mentioned in the beginning. They were also in the invitation to today's lecture that justice and reconciliation cannot come without a collective effort. Looking forward and realizing that we are united in our efforts to fight impunity, I feel a shimmer of hope. This war is uniting us, in our humanity, in our commitment to justice. So thank you so much for your kind attention. Thank you again for the invitation, and I would be happy to hear from you in response. But let me first pass the floor back to you, Nora. Thank you so much.