 Good morning and welcome to the United States Institute of Peace. My name is Lise Grande and I'm the head of USIP, which was established by the U.S. Congress in 1984 as a national nonpartisan public institution dedicated to helping prevent, mitigate and resolve violent conflict abroad. We're very pleased to welcome all of you to the Institute for this important conversation on prosecuting the crime of aggression in Ukraine. The highlight of this morning's meeting is a special statement from President Zelensky, the extraordinary leader of Ukraine, who will describe the efforts underway to hold Russia accountable for the crimes it is committing in his country. We are also honored to welcome U.S. Congressman Representative Bill Keating and U.S. Congressman Representative Joe Wilson and the Ambassador from Ukraine to the United States, Oksana Makavora. USIP is delighted to host this event in partnership with the Embassy of Ukraine and the Atlantic Council. Ambassador Makavora, Ambassador Herbst, your leadership on these issues has been and is exceptional. As we all know, accountability and justice are major pillars of U.S. foreign policy and a shared responsibility of citizens everywhere in the world. Over the past nine months, USIP has been proud to convene a series of events that highlight the urgency and necessity of ensuring accountability for the crimes that are being committed in Ukraine. Today's discussion focuses on the crime of aggression. It is a grievous crime, a manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations, and an act perpetrated by a state and leaders, which undermines the entire foundation of global security. Global mechanisms for prosecuting the crime of aggression, however, lag well behind the mechanisms that have been established to adjudicate genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Holding Russia accountable for what it is doing in Ukraine is one of the most important steps that the international community can take to uphold the interstate norms that protect all of us from catastrophe. And yet no tribunal, domestic or international, holds jurisdiction over the specific crime of aggression. Today, we're going to be looking at what it will take to establish a special tribunal that can do this. It is a distinct honor for us to share a special statement from President Zelensky, which is being presented from Kiev by Andrei Yermak, the head of the office of the President of Ukraine. Following this statement, we are also pleased to welcome Andrei Smirnov, the deputy head of the office of the President of Ukraine, who will also be sharing reflections. Of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, to deliver the following messages to you. Peace is a universal value. And I'm sure that all of you appreciate it. And there is no such person or such a nation that would not dream of it than someone destroying the peace. But peace, it's impossible without justice. And justice, it's impossible without due process of law. What is why it's indispensable element of the peace formula is the establishment of the special tribunal for the crime of aggression committed by Russia against Ukraine. The crime of aggression is the alpha and omega of the world. To start the criminal and provoked war is to open the door to thousands of crimes committed during the hostilities and the occupied territory. Yes, it is necessary to bring to justice everyone who has committed war crimes. But one of these is not enough. That is what minds is the hell of aggression has been measured must also be punished. Who gave the order to start this criminal war and who organized the terror? This is what justice is. What is why Ukraine appeals to you and to the United States of America to support our efforts is establishing the special tribunal for the crime of aggression. Our team will outline the key steps that are needed to make the justice work. And I argue you to support these steps to support the power of universally recognized international law to become the alpha and omega of new and long lasting peace. If we have the due process of law now, justice will bring us the power of peace in the future. I believe that it is possible. Thank you very much for your attention. Good morning and thank you all for attending today's event on Russian accountability for atrocity crimes in Ukraine. It's a pleasure to speak to you all today and I want to thank Ambassador Bill Taylor, the United States Institute of Peace and the Atlantic Council for hosting this event. While logistically committee votes conflict, I'm happy to be able to provide my pre-recorded remarks and look forward to reviewing the lessons learned from this important session. I want to acknowledge President Zelensky and his remarks for earlier this morning. President Zelensky has shown incredible leadership, working to fortify democratic development in Ukraine and since February 24th has courageously defended his people, his country, and importantly the desire for independence from the onslaught of Russian aggression. President Zelensky, we thank you for being here today. I stand with you, a bipartisan congress stands with you, the United States stands with you, and together the international community at large continues to support you and your country's fight for freedom. I'd also like to recognize the Ukrainian people for their heroism and bravery in this horrendous conflict. Since the much larger aggressor, your dogged determination is an inspiration for the world. The American people have been moved by your fight for freedom and as a result from coast to coast in cities and on farms, Americans are voicing their support and Ukrainian flags are being flown across the entire country. One critical area of U.S. support that cannot be forgotten is ensuring Russia is held accountable for the war crimes it's committing in Ukraine. I've twice traveled to the Ukrainian border areas to listen first hand to the accounts of so many people talking about this horror. This will be a painstaking and intensive process, but it's essential that the international community start this process now and work to hold Russians at all levels responsible for any and all illegal actions that they commit in Ukraine. Importantly, this work has already begun. In September of this year, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry briefed the United Nations Human Rights Council stating that war crimes have indeed been committed in Ukraine. This commission has since interviewed 150 witnesses and victims from 27 cities and towns in Ukraine. There have been many cases of civilian executions, torture, assaults, including sexual assault and harassment. In the larger context, this is also the crime of aggression itself waged by Putin and the Russian government in conducting this unlawful war. As chairman of the House Subcommittee on Europe, I've introduced H.R. 8532, the atrocity, crimes, relief and accountability act, a bill which aims to support current international prosecutions being organized by the ICC. This bill really targets all aspects of how to get justice for what's happening in Ukraine. It will allow Ukrainian refugees located in the United States to tell their story to ICC investigators. It reinforces the ability of the United States personnel to advise, assist and provide critical training to Ukrainian war crimes investigators. It establishes a Victims Trust Fund to assist victims of atrocity crimes and then further establish an atrocity crimes rewards program that incentivizes informants to bring forth material evidence leading to the arrest of suspected criminals. In addition, Representative Joe Wilson and I have introduced a bipartisan resolution to establish a special tribunal on the crime of aggression while urging the President of the United States to take all available measures to support the creation of such a special tribunal. This resolution first and foremost condemns the Russian Federation's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and supports the people of Ukraine in their fight for freedom. Further, the resolution provides an internationally recognized definition of the crime of aggression and finds that Russia has committed the crime of aggression against Ukraine. I believe the U.S. has an obligation, along with our international partners, to assist Ukraine in its accountability efforts. Whether it's Vladimir Putin for executing his war on choice, his war of choice, Russian elites for aiding and abetting behavior, Russian military officers for issuing illegal orders, or the lowest Russian soldier for committing horrific acts of violence against civilians, the U.S. must support any and all efforts. We must spare no expense to shine a light on the heinous acts being committed in Ukraine and importantly bring accountability and justice to the people of Ukraine. By doing so, we'll also help ensure that these actions will never happen again. As a former prosecutor, I realize the importance of locking down forensic evidence and writing accounts at the earliest possible stage. Due to advanced technology and the strength of our institutions, we live in a world where justice for crimes committed during times of war is much more attainable than in years past. It's also brought evidence of these programs, of these gruesome crimes, directly to our screens and our televisions at home. We cannot ignore this evidence, nor can we stand idly by. At this inflection point in history, we have an opportunity, an opportunity to find justice for victims and families, an opportunity to hold perpetrators accountable, and an opportunity to ensure the success of Ukraine's democratic and independent future. And it's incumbent on all of us to do our part to ensure Ukrainian investigators and prosecutors have the tools and resources they require in their endeavor to achieve justice. Again, I'd like to thank all of you for participating in this important discussion and I look forward to any future discussion on this topic and for any recommendations you all may have on the ways in which the U.S. Congress can best support this effort. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Joe Wilson, a member of Congress, and I'm very grateful to be serving on the Foreign Affairs Committee and also serving on the Armed Services Committee. I am just so grateful for the U.S. Institute for Peace for having this conference today regarding the potential of trying war crimes that have so clearly been perpetrated against the people of Ukraine. A year ago this week I was in Kiev. It was so inspiring to me to see the people there, they were actually at that time preparing for resistance, but they've done much better than that. And then sadly, the invasion of February the 24th did have an unintended consequence and that is that we have a coming together in Washington of Republicans and Democrats to stand by the people of Ukraine to see the extraordinary opportunities we've seen with NATO now being expanded to include Finland and to include Sweden. How incredible this is and what a positive development this is with the capabilities of both of their countries and to have NATO unified Additionally, I'm really grateful I'm the co-chair of the EU caucus and it's just exciting to see the European Union working to promote countries that are unusual to promote the defense of the people of Ukraine. I just am just so grateful too that as we consider the potential for prosecution of war crimes, we have a really remarkable circumstance and that is that this war is unlike any other war ever in history. It is a cell phone war. It's been identified as that from the beginning. And so the atrocities that are being committed, there will be immediate cell phone capability to develop the day, the location, the exact moments, the different troop movements, the personnel involved in the potential of crimes will be identified. This has never truly occurred before and so sad, but it will be an opportunity to bring justice to the persons who are committing this and the horror of what we see with Vladimir Putin, the war criminal who is sacrificing young Russians for his own personal advertisement of oil, money and power. Additionally, I am really grateful working with the University of South Carolina. We have a rule of law program at the University of Kiev and it has really put perspective to me of that we're in a worldwide competition and that is democracy's rule of law and we're being challenged by autocrats' rule of gun. And so this is so important that we stand behind and beside the people of Ukraine for victory, not just a negotiated settlement of some type, but we know and we can only understand Lukashenko, the dictator of Belarus, has made it clear that if there is success for the autocrats in Ukraine, that they will immediately proceed to Moldova, to Georgia. This gives hope and encouragement, sadly, to the Chinese Communist Party to proceed against the 24 million people of Taiwan and then the axis of evil spreads to Tehran and their plans to vaporize the people of Israel. We all need to be standing together. Another country that should be standing together with us is the Republic of India, which is the world's largest democracy and in a destabilized world would be absolutely catastrophic for India itself. And so this is a conflict that is so critical and so important and I'm just so grateful for the efforts being made by the Institute for Peace to work toward a situation of indeed providing for victory for the people of Ukraine. Thank you very much for your attention. God bless America. God bless Ukraine. We're very pleased that Representative Bill Keating in Massachusetts and Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina have shared their reflections with us. We're now going to go to Kyiv and we're delighted to welcome Andrey Smirnov, the deputy head of the office of the president. Dear colleagues and partners, I am extremely pleased to see every one of you and feel your support that you provide daily to Ukraine. And this support is not only by words, but by Ukraine is fighting for its existence. And we are fighting for this right in the war that was waged by Russia in Ukraine. And this is a very severe, severe war. And this war is happening by the death of civilians, children, women, tortured, killed, execution styles by the Russian missiles. This is the war of the light with the darkness and the light will win. But the question is at what cost? Russia is an aggressor country. And this is not just a hypothesis of diplomatic negotiation. This is a proven fact. And it was not only proven by video messages and pictures, but also by destroyed towns, critical infrastructure. This is the fact that's been established in international decisions and resolution. And this aggressor, established specifically, is designating this war to destroy the people of Ukraine. We have been tried three times by Holodomor. We will persevere when they want us to froze freeze to death without water, without heat. Many thousands, 45,000 buildings were destroyed. 1,500 establishments for children were destroyed. 11,000 kids were forcefully taken out of Ukraine. And these were just the established facts. The real scale of the tragedy is much bigger. The atrocities are just great. And I just don't want to retell the story. The children and the kids who were tortured, and we are now working on exhuming their bodies. And every time, so for the aggressor, international conventions, any warfare conventions are not taken into consideration. The enemy has to be stopped in honor of the peace security in the whole world. And there are few people to be blamed for this. Of course, first is the executor, the Russian soldier who came to Ukraine to kill, or even the launcher, or the missile launcher. But on the other hand, those people who committed the original crime, the crime of aggression, we have the answers to both questions, how to bring to justice both of the sides of this crime. But in order to establish international order and law, we need your help to help us create history. And this, you can help us in this fight who create these atrocities in the 24th century. In the first, since the beginning of the war, the legal team of the office of the president were looking for an effective method and effective weapons. So somehow, these weapons was hidden. And this is the responsibility for aggression. Nobody discussed this weapon of responsibility, the so-called weapon of responsibility. And nobody brought the question in Chechnya. For instance, in 2008, the invasion to Georgia in Crimea and Donbass. Well, if we look at the tools that we have at our disposal, this is not the satellite's world, we won't see a lot of things that we can use right now. So we don't have a lot of things to use to deter and counter the actions of the demanded dictator. However, we've learned the lessons of history well how to bring to justice for the crime of aggression, the primary crime that provokes all other crimes, including genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. So we have waited out, we have analyzed all the risks of using other international instruments and mechanisms. And we have come to one conclusion that the only one alternative, free and effective mechanism of bringing to holding accountable for the crime of aggression, the Russian Federation, is the creation of a special international tribunal. We believe that the sooner we will implement this, the quicker we'll attain the victory. So we need to, first and foremost, call the international terrorist the way what it really is. So Ukrainians have proven their resolve to fight for their kids, for their livelihood. So we are now in a very unique environment, legal environment, because we see that the international criminal court does not actually receives, accepts cases from the countries that are not party to its statutes. However, unless the Security Council of the United Nations will bring in such a request on behalf of the country, a non-party country. And in this case, we see that the international criminal court cannot do much for us to help us. And we would like to use the international criminal court as well as one of the instruments for going after the Russian Federation. However, over the period of eight months of the Russian military aggression against Ukraine, we haven't seen a single case filed with the international criminal court that relates to the crime of aggression. So we see a lot of other cases related to the crimes against humanity and others, but not the one that I mentioned first. So we understand that Russia will do everything in order to prevent us from bringing it to justice for the crime of aggression. We believe that our civilized world need to unite in order to unite our efforts, in order to accomplish that, to bring Russia to justice for that particular crime, to make an example of Russia, to make sure that no other country would do similar thing after the Second World War. So I call upon you to support Ukraine and start discussing ways of making it happen. We collectively need to act in order to protect the lives of Ukrainian mothers and children who are innocent and who may become yet another victims of Russian bombardments and shelling, but rather to make sure that we have built this foundation for our common security and the defense. And thank you so much on behalf of myself, on behalf of the entire Ukrainian nation as a Ukrainian. So I would like to thank the United States for their support and will support to Ukraine in this fight. So we will survive. We will prevail. Thank you so much and glory to Ukraine. It's our great honor now to welcome to the podium Ambassador Oksana Makovra. Ambassador Makovra has served as the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States since April 2021 and previously had the distinction of serving as the Minister of Finance. She is a remarkable advocate for her country, one of Washington's most respected diplomats and a leader for peace, Madam Ambassador. Dear President Liz Grande, all colleagues, I am so happy to be here with the Institute of Peace and Atlantic Council and I want to thank you for a remarkable job we do together since February 24th. We cooperated a lot before, but this project that we have on going project on our search for justice, our fight for justice, has been very important and we're very pleased to continue doing so. So both ambassadors, Ambassador Herb and Ambassador Taylor, I'm very happy that we have here our Ukrainian delegation that is having very, very active days in Washington, D.C., led by Lesa Zaborana, but also other parliament members who are here and our Ambassador Koronevich and Alexandra Drake and Civil Society. This is a joint delegation to talk yet about another instrument which we are to actively advocate now. It's 287th day of war, 16,000 airstrikes since February 24th, 97% of those on residential targets, unimaginable amount of atrocities and war crimes committed. And as we discussed in previous events in this forum, we have engaged in pretty much all international arena and everything we could do nationally in order to prosecute these atrocities crimes. So we have the national criminal prosecution, we now have cases in all three major international courts, we now have a number of partners starting their own national prosecutions and we're helping and sharing the information. Why would like to thank the United States for unimaginable support in all of these areas from all key departments and also from President Biden, but the Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group that was started by the Department of State and under great leadership of Batvan Skak, and she has been with us a number of times here, but also the war crimes accountability team that is led by Ali Rosenbaum, which is very important on other issues and other crimes that we are trying to prosecute and the kleptocapture task force where all departments came together to essentially find, seize and confiscate the assets. All of that work is complimenting each other and today we're talking about tribunal, yet another very powerful instrument not to substitute, not to divert the attention, but to compliment everything that we are doing in order to address the mother of this crime, the crime of aggression. The fact that Putin decided to attack us in 2014 and re-attack and reinvade the country in 2022 is the reason of all other crimes that are happening in Ukraine. So I will not take a lot of your time. This is something as you heard from the President Zelensky statement, as you heard from President Zelensky 10 step peace formula, justice is inseparable part of peace. Even after we win, and we have no doubts that Ukraine will win this war, even after we win in order for the peace to be lasting and in order for peace to be true and just, justice has to be served and everyone has to be held accountable, including Putin and all those high level officials who decided to start the war. So I look forward to this excellent discussion. I'm very grateful for my colleagues. We have support for this idea of tribunal more and more, not only from our European colleagues, but also here in the United States. And I hope that this event, like many other events, which we had and then we moved actively on some of the issues is going to be the event which we will say this is when we discussed it. And right after that, we received great support for this idea. And I hope 2023 will be a year when this idea will come into realization. We need this tribunal for Ukraine, but we also need it for the world. Because if we can help hold Russia accountable for this, we can prevent so many other atrocities and aggressions. And we can also restore the global rule of law system, which has been shattered again on February 24th. So thank you all. I wish you good discussion. God bless America. Islava, Ukraine. We're going to invite the members of the panel to join us on the stage. First, Ambassador Bull Taylor, who is the vice president for the Institute of Peace. Bill's done an incredible job in the last nine months in doing everything possible to highlight the issues in Ukraine. We try and keep track of how many times Bill has appeared on television and the media. He's given more than 800 separate interviews. Bill, welcome to the stage. Ambassador, please, please. Please, thank you. Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to be here. It's an honor to be here. Follow you, Ambassador Markarva, the president in the words spoken by Andrew Yermak, the two members of Congress who addressed us as well, all for the purpose that Ambassador Markarva just described. That is a special tribunal. Got a great panel here to be able to talk about this. We look forward to questions from people in this room, but also people online. There's an opportunity to submit questions online. Please take that. They will come to me somehow or other. It will show up here. And I will address the panelists here. So let me introduce them. Ambassador Markarva has already introduced a member of parliament, Lesya Zabrunov. She is also the chair of the subcommittee on public expenditures of the Budget Committee, and Vahognarada. She was elected in August of 2019. It took to office in August of 2019. Ambassador Kornovitz, Ambassador of Large, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, head of the Ukrainian delegation to the International Court of Justice. Antonin served as the permanent representative of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea between June 2019 and April of 2022. So Ambassador, welcome. And all the way on your right, my left, Ambassador David Scheffer, senior fellow of the Council on Foreign Affairs. The first ever US Ambassador of Large for War Crimes. And he led the US delegation to the UN talks establishing the International Criminal Court. He also signed the Rome Statue of the ICC on behalf of the United States and can tell us about the fate of that here in this country as well, Ambassador. He knows about special tribunals. Having experienced with Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Cambodia and the ICC. So this is a great panel that we've got to be able to discuss this. Anton, Ambassador, let me start with you. You have probably originated this idea in Kiev and I know you've worked hard to establish it and as your President, as Andrey Yermak has said, as Ambassador Markarva has described, made great progress. What was the basis? What's your, how does this work in Ukraine but also more broadly, what's your vision of how the special tribunals should work? Yes, thank you so much, Ambassador. The question and of course, I'm really happy and honored to be here today in this panel with such distinguished panelists and I'm sure we'll have a great discussion. So just maybe to clarify that this idea, and this is I think the very important notion that this idea was born both in Kiev but also on the international side. So it was really a momentum when we, Ukrainian lawyers in the office as a President and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we understood that we need to do some action in this respect and also our colleagues, great export international lawyers in particular in London, Professor Philip Sands, Professor Dapo Okhanda and now I mean they are in many countries, UK, US, Australia, Germany, that the idea of the special tribunal was born and I think this merging of Ukrainian national and international suggestions and proposals, it is very important and of course, we are very grateful to our, if I may call them academic colleagues and counsel for their valuable advice, this is very important for us. And one of the reasons why this talk started was actually the oped in financial times by our big friend, Professor Philip Sands, why don't we establish a special tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine? So we do see that this is the biggest war, at least in Europe since 1945. We do see that as a state which uses, effectively and actively, all the possible tools and instruments to get Russia accountable and Russian citizens accountable for their crimes. We do feel that these existing mechanisms are not enough to secure, to satisfy the existence of comprehensive accountability. And we cannot afford ourselves as Ukrainians and as international community I think also to find ourselves in the situation when in several years we might have indictments, arrest warrants, judgments, in relation to low-level and mid-level perpetrators of the crimes from the side of the Russian Federation. Of course, it is important, but it will not be enough. So that is why the very nature of our idea is to work on the crime of aggression which leads directly to the top to those maybe 20 of persons who gave and still give orders to wage the aggressive war against Ukraine. And this is their crime. Their crime is aggression against our nation, violating our territorial integrity, trying to breach our sovereignty. And that is why we assure that while we will continue using all the existing tools and mechanisms, including the ICC, including cooperation with the International Criminal Court, we understand that without working on a track of investigation and prosecution of the crime of aggression against Ukraine, there might be a chance that the people who are the drivers of this war, where this war originated in their minds that they will leave with impunity. We cannot afford that. Ambassador, no one can afford that. The Ukrainians can't afford that. The world can't afford that. So the establishment of this special tribunal is really important. As Ambassador McCarver just said, it's important for Ukraine, it's important for the world. On the mechanics or on the actual setting it up, that you have mentioned, others have mentioned the coordination with and the working with another international organization, whether it's the European Union or the UN. What are your thoughts on how this special tribunal should be established? So talking more on legal details and technicalities, of course Ukraine cannot establish this tribunal alone. This should be an international action and support. So there may be several options how this tribunal may be established. The first track is to go to the United Nations to have the agreement of Ukraine and the United Nations, which will be endorsed by the resolution of the General Assembly to set this tribunal. The second option will be to have something with participation of European regional international organizations, say European Union and or Council of Europe. And I'm sure you know that they both are active now on this track, on this track of accountability for the ground progression. There is also the option of signing and having a treaty, a multilateral treaty between states, which will establish such a tribunal, so-called Nuremberg model. So as of for now, all the options are on the table. We are trying to see and what we are now doing. We are trying to get the feedback from our international partners, which option of establishing the tribunal looks feasible, looks more efficient, and looks as the one which can fly. Because of course we do not want to move on a track, which will not be supported by our international partners. And this is very important. What we are sure about and what we are talking with our international partners is that in this issue of establishing this tribunal, of bringing justice and accountability for the crime of aggression against Ukraine, Ukraine shall not be left alone. I think that this is a critical point. Because the crime of aggression against Ukraine, as Mr. Yermak and Mr. Smenov mentioned, this is a crime which for the sake of international community cannot be left without response. And for international lawyers, I see some of them here in the room, and I'm sure they are listening also to us and looking at our discussion. If the crime of aggression is not investigated and perpetrated in this particular situation, with all this recognition of aggression, of an act of aggression, in particular, by the resolution of UN General Assembly, then it will mean, as Mr. Smenov said, that this might happen anytime, any day. And the crime of aggression is something for a textbook on public international law, on history of international law. I think that this is something which should not be our case. Absolutely. Let's see, I'm gonna come to you next, but David, this is an interesting question that you have some views on, I suspect, as an international lawyer, so we'll come back to you. Let's see, thank you for organizing this. We have you to thank for all of this in coordination with John Herbst at the Atlanta Council. It's your organizational drive that got us here. So how, in the RADA, how are you working this issue in Kiv and in the RADA? Thank you very much. First of all, I would like to say thank you for you, Ambassador Taylor, for Ambassador Herbst, for the cooperation between Atlantic Council and Institute of Peace, for organizing this such important event, meeting for us, because this topic is crucially important for Ukraine and not only for Ukraine, but for all democratic countries in the world. Because I would like to highlight that now Ukraine, we are not fighting for only our independence, for only our country and our freedom, but now we are fighting for all democratic worlds, for democratic values, and it's crucially important for us to fill your support in this question. And we are grateful for the United States for support in military sphere, in financial support because without you, without your help, it's impossible for us to be successful in this struggle. And I am absolutely sure that we will win as our head of office, Andres Mironov, my colleagues mentioned. We believe that in nearest future we will have a victory. About your question about our work in the parliament of Ukraine, we started our work in the beginning of March after the war was started in February and we adopted our legislation base because we needed also very strong cooperation with different international institution in the prosecution, in the investigation of war crimes and other different crimes. But as my colleague Anton Koronevich mentioned, what is the problem is the prosecution of the crime of aggression because we know that unfortunately now ICC and other international institution haven't jurisdiction to prosecute the crime of aggression. But the crime of aggression is a mother crime and it's the reason for all other war crimes which we have unfortunately in our country. So in parliament, in Ukrainian parliament, we have done a lot of work to adopt our legislation according to the good collaboration with different institution in, I mean international criminal court, I mean another prosecution institutions. And we hope that it will be a very good background for the establishment in future, the special tribunal also. So you mentioned that how much Ukraine appreciates US support and of course we appreciate your, the Ukrainian courage and determination to fight this aggression. I'm very glad that we had the two congressmen speak to that and it was bipartisan just to make it clear that the United States continues to support, will continue to support on a bipartisan basis, all of the kind of things that you mentioned. Both this establishment of the special tribunal but also as you mentioned, the financial support and the military. So it's very good to have that support there. Ambassador Sheffer, a couple of questions. One is the one that the ambassador mentioned in terms of how to set this up. You've got some experience in setting up these special tribunals. What advice do you have for that question? Well thanks, Ambassador Taylor. It's a great pleasure to be here again. Yes, we went through this in the 1990s in a very intensive way in the building of five courts. And several of them were relating to specific situations in the world and of course the final one, the permanent ICC was for the future. And it would be hoped frankly that when a situation like Ukraine occurred this year, the ICC would be fully capable of taking this on so that we don't have to talk about special tribunals again. That was the intention of the negotiators that get this job done with the ICC. But in this case there's a quirk and that is that the ICC simply cannot exercise jurisdiction over the crime of aggression with respect to the Russian invasion of Ukraine for reasons that one could explain at length, but I won't. And therefore there is an opportunity here and I simply do not believe it is that difficult. Just as we did with the special courts that we established for Cambodia and Sierra Leone and then later for Lebanon, the special tribunal for Lebanon five, six years later, there can be a tribunal established through a treaty arrangement between the United Nations, which is an international institution with international legal personality, enters into treaties all the time, and the government of Ukraine. There would be a general assembly resolution, forget the security council, the Russian and Chinese veto, silence the security council on these matters. But the general assembly just as with Cambodia can direct the secretary general to enter into negotiations with the government of Ukraine to establish such a court. Now in Cambodia's case, the agreement was that it would be a Cambodian court but with a huge amount of UN infusion into it and authority and legal rights with respect to that tribunal in Cambodia. With Sierra Leone, the direction pointed in another direction. In other words, a completely UN dominated court that ultimately became designated as an international tribunal by the judges themselves. So that procedure is available. The general assembly, which has already spoken several times with great condemnation with respect to the Russian aggression, could adopt such a resolution. And then frankly, the secretary general has the power then to negotiate the treaty and have the treaty signed between the United Nations and Ukraine. It is necessary for the crime of aggression but remember, the crime of aggression is not literally just February 24th. It is a continuing crime against Ukraine. Every time Russian military crossed the border from Russia into Ukraine, probably some are doing it today, there's an act of aggression. Every time Russia fires missiles from Russian territory onto Ukraine, there's an act of aggression. Every time Russian aircraft move from Russian territory over into Ukraine territory, that's an act of aggression. And then there may be supplemental crimes. What those armaments then do may create war crimes. They may create crimes against humanity. They may be part of a plan for genocide. But the point is the crime of aggression is continuing. It is a perpetual crime. And that's why if one were to establish such a special tribunal, which I think is entirely feasible, and by the way, we have a series of blogs on the Just Security blog site, some other academics and I spelling all of this out, you just have to go to that series on Just Security to see all the writing on it. If that were to occur, then I strongly believe, and I have one of my blogs about this, that there could be very tight coordination between the International Criminal Court and the Special Tribunal, whereby the evidence is sorted out, the target list for defendants is sorted out, there will be overlap. You figure that out, it's not mission impossible. The ICC may have primacy determined to go ahead with a war crimes charge. And then ultimately the Special Tribunal will take up the aggression charge. We do that all the time in our domestic courts. Harvey Weinstein was convicted in New York. Now he's standing trial in California for similar crimes. It happens. There can be subsequent crimes that are prosecuted before different courts. Not a big deal. So I think it can be done, but I think everyone has to sit back and realize two things. One, I think the Special Tribunal could actually be negotiated within a matter of weeks between UN lawyers and the government of Ukraine and then set up by May, June. And secondly, we're in this for the long haul. This is gonna take many, many years. We have to look for opportunities, maybe even under sealed indictments to capture suspects while they're outside Russian territory. And the final point, very quickly, Ambassador Taylor, is don't forget Belarus. The one crime that Lukashenko and the Belarus leadership can be most found at fault for is the crime of aggression. They are accomplice with Russia in terms of the ultimate invasion, particularly in February, of Ukraine. So you don't wanna forget those suspects as well. And Belarus is not a party to the ICC, so you need a Special Tribunal to get that done. Thank you. I have one other question for you on the definition that you kind of alluded to, but let me just mention, Lysia and Anton, you have the expert here, and I saw you taking notes. You've probably got some questions for him. So feel free to pose those and then we will open it to the audience as well. But, David, on the definition of aggression, when you negotiated the Rome Treaty, there, you define the crime of aggression. Well, let me clarify that. Yes, please. In fact, we did not arrive at a definition of the crime of aggression in 1998 in Rome. It was one thing we couldn't get to. It was a busy time. So what happened was the crime of aggression was put into the Rome statute with a placeholder saying, please convene a review conference within seven years or so to work out the definition of aggression and how it would actually be activated under the Rome statute. That took place in Campala in 2010. All done. The amendments were agreed to with respect to the Rome statute. Those amendments are now part of the Rome statute and there are I think 43 or 44 states which have now ratified those amendments with respect to the crime of aggression. The definition, very interestingly, is drawn from the 1974 General Assembly Resolution which did define aggression but for purposes of state responsibility. That definition was felt to be part of customary international law by the early 2000s and therefore it was embraced by the parties, the member states of the ICC at that time as part of the Campala amendments. They simply took the 1974 definition which everyone had agreed to by consensus in 1974 and grafted it in to the Rome statute. I will just tell you shortly, one could say, oh, wait a minute, isn't that a dated definition? Don't we need to update that? I gave some thought to that myself and yes, it would be great if there was something specifically in there dealing with cyber warfare, for example, to sort of update the concept of aggression. On the other hand, judges could easily use wording within that definition to encompass cyber warfare. Of the checklist that was established in that definition, I just looked at it again this morning, there was only one provision of that definition which would be irrelevant for Ukraine. Every other component of that definition is definitively relevant for what has happened between Russia and Ukraine and thus would be the basis for criminal investigations and prosecutions. Thank you, David. I'll tell you, you have the opportunity to pursue. Yeah, so of course, having Ambassador Sheffer here with us, it's a great opportunity and of course, we do agree with this international legal understanding and of course, it is very important that United Nations does participate in this process of setting up this tribunal. So of course, the level of participation of United Nations may be different one. I mean, it can be of course, if we go for a modality of an agreement of Ukraine and the United Nations on the basis of Cambodian, for instance, president, then of course, the resolution of General Assembly may endorse it or other way, if the mechanism, the tribunal is established on the basis of some other model, then of course, endorsement from United Nations General Assembly was a specific resolution on support of this tribunal. Will be very important to show the global understanding and global support and it is of course, a matter of legitimacy and credibility because whenever you create something new and international, of course, we need to secure the broad support for such an endeavor, for such an effort. And I think that this is something what we hear from a lot of our international partners, that whatever is the modality by Ukraine and by our international partners will be chosen, the issue of getting the broadest possible support is very important to that. And I think this is something what president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen was talking about was a statement on the 30th of November that EU and we are very happy with the statement that EU is already proposing something so it's not only considering but proposing. And of course, we are ready to work with our colleagues on that matter and that this mechanism, this court, special tribunal, it should have this broad support in particular, it should be backed by the United Nations because in the very end it is about, as I mentioned, maybe maximum 20 of alleged suspects, of course it's up for tribunal to decide, not for us, here in this room, the procedures should be secured but it might be that it's 20 people but the 20 people who are really in charge of pretty much all the main affairs inside the state. So of course, it is a case that we need to have this support of international community because a lot of legal issues and challenges will follow and of course the obvious elephant in the room is the issue of immunities. And we will need to deal with that, whatever model we choose, of course, because it's a matter of being very cautious and being very legalistically, I would say, clear cut. And I think that it is important for us, as I mentioned, to see how do we move forward now from this political support which we, I think now, got in particular in Europe with support from Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe for resolutions, for resolutions of the European Parliament, for resolutions of NATO Parliamentary Assembly, resolution of OEC Parliamentary Assembly, several national parliament resolutions and it is indeed very important that we have this bipartisan draft resolution motion for resolution by congressmen, Skidding and Wilson because it is a parliamentary approach and position which the government, I'm sure, would listen to and would take into account. And for us, for Ukrainians, it's also a matter which unites Ukrainians because we have here with us in DC now, parliamentarians, colleagues from the office of the president, representatives of civil society, you heard colleagues from the office of management, leadership of the office of the president. So that is a priority and now we want to transfer this political support to some more concrete legal action and technical action for us to move forward on that direction. Anton, you mentioned the broad support in Ukraine, including civil society and I'm going to recognize Alexander Drik who up there in a moment, Alexander, just for you can represent the civil society aspect of this delegation and of Ukraine. But before we do that, David, I know you had some thoughts and I'd be interested also in this question of EU sponsorship or UN sponsorship. Exactly, please. And Anton, your remarks are so on point. Let me just say that there's a great debate underway if some of you don't know about it within the international legal community and at the International Criminal Court and which is holding its annual meeting this week in The Hague at the Assembly of States Parties of the ICC over this whole issue of whether or not there should even be a special tribunal. And Anton noted one point, which is immunities. What he's talking about is head of state immunity which is a rock solid principle under international law that sometimes makes sense and sometimes does not actually. That actually immunizes leaders of states from any kind of investigation or prosecution on the territory of a foreign state while they are head of state. Once they lose that power, then go for it. But while they have that power, they're not supposed to be subject to the legal scrutiny of other states. That's the principle under international law. However, the International Criminal Court for all the member states of it, they've already agreed to waive that immunity with respect to ICC investigations and stuff. That's good. President Putin will be subject to investigation by the ICC on war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide without being able to head of state immunity with respect to at least not successfully in front of the judges of the ICC. And then secondly, however, that is for the crime of aggression since the ICC does not have jurisdiction, we have to talk about a special tribunal. Now if we talk about a special tribunal, if it's created with a treaty with the United Nations, you can address that issue of sovereign immunity and the team of academics that I work with have argued very strenuously, you can remove head of state of immunity from the equation because that special tribunal will be an international criminal tribunal and courts have already ruled on this, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court and the Special Court for Sierra Leone have all addressed this issue and said, yeah, if it's an international tribunal, head of state of immunity is off deck. And so if such a court were to be established, for example, by the European Union or Council of Europe, while I admire those efforts, I'm not so sure that courts established under that methodology would be able to successfully take head of state immunity off deck and not allow that to be alleged by the Russian defendants or certainly by Mr. Putin, by foreign ministers, by the senior cadre of the Russian government. So that's a very important legal issue that everyone's noodling around, but I would just also finish with this Ambassador Taylor, sorry. Prosecutor Karim Khan of the ICC has stated his objection to the creation of a special tribunal, but he does so based mostly on that this would dilute attention from the ICC's efforts, that governments would not provide the sufficient funding to the ICC voluntarily, presumably, that is required. I would disagree with that. The crime of aggression is a basic crime of the ICC. You cannot put it aside. And just because there's a jurisdictional blockage on this, the special tribunal can contribute to the long term life of the ICC by actually demonstrating through very close coordination with the ICC the actual investigation and prosecution of the crime of aggression so that in the future, the ICC will actually have the tools, the experience, the history of working with the special tribunal to draw upon for 50, 60, 80 years from now, another act of aggression occurs, the ICC is ready to go. It's not, I just don't think the ICC should be intimidated by the prospect of the special tribunal. It can be coordinated. Adon? Yeah, just, I think that this is a perfect point by Ambassador is that from your pranian perspective, we do think the same. We do not compete with the ICC. We do not want to impede to hamper the investigation, the work of the ICC. We deeply appreciate the investigation of the ICC in relation of three categories of core crimes, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the large genocide. Our prosecutors have coordination and cooperation on the daily basis. We have amended our national law, in particular our criminal procedural code in order to make work of the ICC more effective. And I think that if you ask the ICC whether ICC is happy with cooperation with Ukraine, I think they will say yes, because really this cooperation goes really very, very deep. And ICC is also joining us up to the joint investigative team for the first time in the history of the office of the prosecutor of the ICC. So our idea of the special tribunal is really to complement and supplement ICC, to use the principles and rules which are set forth in their own statute and to apply them to the very situation of this particular crime of aggression. And this is very important. So we would be happy to and we cooperate with the ICC and I'm sure that there will be some moment when this moment of, I would say, hesitation or whatever we can call it can be overcome. Thank you, Anton. Nasha? If I may, I would like to add a few words. I am not a lawyer, so I will try to explain my position as a politics. You know, I absolutely agree with my colleague, Anton Korinevich. We wouldn't like to complete it with ICC, but what we need? As a members of parliament, we meet with our Ukrainian people every day. We spoke with them about different issues and the main request from all Ukrainian people is a request about the justice. So we have to give the answer for this request. And if it's impossible to do with ICC because of the jurisdiction, so we have together to establish new institution which will help us to give the answer, to give the answer for all Ukrainian people, for civil society. Because if we talk about our people, I can tell you that we have now about 10,000 killed civilian people in our country. So a lot of families across all the Ukraine unfortunately have a tragedy. And we have to give them the answer. We have to give the answer not only for this family but for our future generation, for our kids, for our children. We have to show them that justice exists in a modern world. And if we want to live in a democratic world, if we want to develop our democratic values, we have to demonstrate our work together and to demonstrate them that we will achieve this main goal because justice is one of the most important values for democracy. So we would like to ask you, yesterday we had a very fruitful meeting with Congressman Keating, who is the author of this declaration. We discussed the scheme, the possibility of adoption of this declaration is the nearest future. And we asked also you to support this idea because, of course, I am absolutely sure that it's not very easy to establish a new international mechanism. But we have to do it. We have to do it not only for Ukraine but for all democratic world to demonstrate that we support justice. We have to demonstrate it for our children, for our next generation. And we have to do what we can do but it's never happened forever. Such terrible war as we have now in our country. And I would just add that while the US position with respect to the International Criminal Court goes like this with each administration, it depends on what administration one's dealing with. US leadership in building these types of courts has never wavered Sierra Leone, Cambodia, Lebanon and, of course, right after World War II, Nuremberg and Tokyo. So the United States has never hesitated to take the lead in the creation of these types of special tribunals. Listen, you bring up the point that this is important for all Ukrainians. And you and your delegation from the Rada represent the people of Ukraine. But also, and here I'm going to ask Alexander Drik, who is there. And if we have a mic, thank you very much. Representing civil society, but also, people will know that this is a Nobel laureate. This is the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. I feel like I should send out the laureates, thank you. I think you wanted to pose a question. I just want me to come to that. You have the opportunity to... Yes, well, first of all, I think it's very symbolic that we're here now in the Institute of Peace. And we, as it was mentioned, received the Nobel Peace Prize this year. And what we, as the Center for Civil Liberties, have been doing and focused on is documenting crimes committed by the Russian Army in Ukraine. Obviously, with over 27,000 of these war crimes, crimes against humanity documented, we do it not to become historians, but to make sure that there is accountability for all these crimes and that justice is delivered to all the victims. At the same time, unfortunately, the situation with all four major grave international crimes basically is the following. We don't have an institution in the world that can hold Russian and political military leadership accountable for the crime of aggression. And while we understand that there is a huge number of victims that have been suffering and continue to suffer as we speak now in Ukraine from all these crimes, it's also important to remember that the factors triggered by the Russian aggression against Ukraine have affected much more people all over the globe. And that's not even us, that's the UN calculations that has analyzed that 1.6 billion people in 94 countries have been directly affected by these factors. So what it means is that victims of this Russian aggression against Ukraine scattered all over the world, across the continents, and those people suffering from hunger in Africa, from defaults in Asia, from inflation in Latin America, they can equally be considered the victims of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. Not only it violates the rules based in international order as it was laid out in the UN Chata under which 193 countries have subscribed, but it does directly make people all over the world pay the price for Putin's sick imperialistic ambition. Ukraine was not the first, and it was mentioned here, there was Moldova, there was Chechnya, there was Georgia, there was Mali, Libya, Syria. Many places where Russia and Russian affiliated groups have been committing war crimes, and they have been enjoying impunity for decades. This has to stop, and Ukraine was not the first, but Ukraine must become the last. This is exactly why we, as the Nobel Peace Prize laureates of this year, have decided to invest this public capital into what we believe is a very right thing to do, and this is to support this initiative, and this is exactly what we're asking now, people all over the world, those capitals that we have been visiting here as well, to support the establishment of the tribunal, because there can be no peace without accountability. Thank you. Alexander, thank you very much. And this is very relevant here at the Institute of Peace. So we look for options for peace here at the Institute. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to your organization, and so we both have invested in peace a sustainable peace, a just peace. It cannot, the word peace is important, but it is important that it be a lasting peace, and if a temporary one won't work. We can, this is not the topic of this discussion today, but this is very important that the Nobel Peace Prize winners here at the United States Institute of Peace are focusing on these issues. Ambassador Sheffer, David, I've got one last question that I'd love to get thoughts and questions from the audience here. You mentioned the importance of moving quickly, and you're hoping that this tribunal could be set up by next spring. What's your thinking, what's the urgency? As you said, there's no statute of limitations on some of these things, but what's the urgency? Well, first of all, there are precedents. We set up the Yugoslav Tribunal through the UN rather quickly in 1993. While the war was going on in the Balkans, we set up the Rwanda Tribunal within six to seven months after the end of the genocide in Rwanda, and that mattered, because remember, we're talking about evidence. These are criminal investigations and prosecutions. You need to get the right people into the field, gathering the evidence, and this, of course, has been happening in spades in Ukraine, but you still need to get the process underway in order to get those procedures for evidence and other investigations underway as quickly as you can while witnesses' memories are still fresh, and while, of course, the physical evidence, the forensic evidence is still available. I do think that it's important with respect to Ukraine because the world's attention will float onwards to other situations a year or two, three years from now, and it'll be more and more difficult to set up the accountability mechanism if, in fact, we're going to do this. I certainly experienced this with both Cambodia, where we sought, ultimately successfully, to set up a court to deal with the 1970s atrocities of Pol Pot. You can imagine how difficult that is for me to walk into a foreign ministry and try to persuade some of them weren't even born at the time, that it's important to set up a court to deal with the Pol Pot regime and its leadership. That's very difficult, and the same with Sierra Leone, it took quite a number of years after the Civil War ended to actually get that court set up for all sorts of various reasons. So I would just argue, and that hurt because some of the potential defendants died, and the same, of course, was true for the Cambodia Tribunal. So I would just say that it's very important to get to these potential suspects as quickly as possible with the kind of procedures and operations that the courts have to undertake in order to build their cases against them. Thank you, David. Thank you. Thank you. I would like to add a few words also. You know, we talked a lot about the mechanism of establishing the special tribunal, but as Anton Kourinevich mentioned, in the beginning, first of all, the first step for us is political support and political willing the United States to support our idea. In the beginning of our meeting, we had a brilliant speech of our great friend, Congressman Keating, and as I mentioned, we met with him yesterday, and we discussed the resolution number 1435, which was registered in Congress just now, and we need all your support for the adoption of this resolution. We haven't time. We need it now because you know that in February, we will have the anniversary of the war, if I can say anniversary. It's a good word, but unfortunately. So it will be a very great political signal from the United States for us that United States, if they will adopt this resolution, will demonstrate our support for us, and it will be a great political background for the next step in the establishment of this tribunal. So we could like to ask this support, this political willing, and one of the most important issue now is the adoption of this resolution in Congress. Thank you, Mr. President. If I may, just in relation to the issue. So questions coming up, so have your questions ready. Yeah, very quickly. In relation to the issue of efficiency and speed, just for it to be heard from Ukrainian legal team, we as Ukrainian lawyers and politicians, we are ready to move forward as fast as we can, and this is actually what we do promote, in particular now in DC. So we are working tirelessly on this thing, and the things that we already got some good result. We couldn't suggest in March that this issue will be such high on the agenda. So just to make sure that Ukrainian side, we are ready to move as efficient and as speedy as we can in order to get the job done. Thank you, Anton, very good. Okay, love to have questions, comments, thoughts from people in this room, and if there are any online, we can take those as well. Yes ma'am. Name and we got a mic, and look, know your name, and. My name is Katie McKinney, I'm a law student at GW, and I have a quick question for Ambassador Sheffer. So with the special tribunal, I'm very interested in the sort of interference that you'd see from countries like Russia and its allies in sort of the functions of that tribunal, and I'm interested also in the efforts that the US, as well as other countries that support Ukraine can take to sort of mitigate that interference that you may anticipate. Right. Thanks, I'm a fan of GW Law School. I had a great visiting professorship there for a year. The opportunity for Russia and Belarus perhaps to interfere with the special tribunal only goes to the extent frankly of not, first of all, not cooperating with it at all, which one would not expect it to, but secondly, not making available for arrest and custody any Russian who might be indicted by the special tribunal for the crime of aggression. That too is expected. I mean, there's nothing surprising about that. But secondly, I think ultimately leverage can be employed against Russia by the international community, by the NATO powers, et cetera, in the sense that right now there's a tremendous body of sanctions against Russia. And while if there were to be a peace settlement of some sort negotiated, some of those sanctions might be lifted, let's just hypothesize, let's say some of the sanctions are lifted through a peace settlement. It doesn't mean all of the sanctions have to be lifted. And you can keep a reservoir of sanctions in place until there's proper cooperation by Russia, particularly in terms of indicted fugitives from either the ICC or the special tribunal. That would, you know, that's a rather severe punishment, but it does go to the heart of how these courts operate. I mean, this was the tactic used in the Balkans with Serbia in terms of ultimately getting Milosevic, Keredic, and Miladic before the Yugoslav tribunal, the European Union in particular used sanctions as a weapon against Serbia to cooperate. And then those sanctions would be lifted. So that's one way. The second I would just add is, remember, there will also be a whole host of reparations negotiations and meetings, et cetera, that will take place for years now in terms of Russian liability on reparations towards Ukraine. And working through some cooperation with the special tribunal and with the ICC might be a good sort of lubricant for those negotiations to sort of loosen them up a little bit. So David, if I can just follow up, great question. So how does this, how does special tribunals work in terms of, as you say, bringing defendants to the tribunal? Well, as oftentimes the skeptics will say, oh, you'll never get the head of state or the top people there because they'll just hide and forever be outside the realm of justice. Of course, they're almost, they're quite often proven wrong. Charles Taylor of Liberia was brought to justice. Milosevic of Serbia was brought to justice. Of the top leaders of Rwanda were brought to justice. And so I would think that ultimately you conduct your work in these tribunals, including the ICC. You get the evidence. You prepare your indictments. You issue the indictment either publicly or you could have a sealed indictment, which the world doesn't know about. And that individual then travels from Moscow to Paris for a shopping trip. And guess what? In Paris that individual is arrested under international arrest warrant backed by the sealed indictment. So there are ways to ultimately get custody. Also remember that the indictments themselves are delegitimizing acts for the individual. In other words, let's say Putin is indicted by the ICC or the special tribunal in the near future or within a year or two. While he will claim that he doesn't care, frankly, it will further delegitimize him internationally. He'll be an indicted fugitive. And secondly, even within Russian society itself, he may feign that it won't matter. But frankly, it usually does to the people that they are now led by an indicted fugitives internationally who can only possibly travel to Belarus and China in safety and nowhere else in the world to represent them. That doesn't work. So ultimately those indictments can make a difference. Excellent. Very good question. Great question. Thank you for answering. Other questions from here or from the online? Yes ma'am. And there's a mic right here. Thank you so much. Laura Kelly from The Hill. I think you kind of touched on my question. Was wondering about what are the desired outcomes of special tribunal prosecution, whether it's jail time for perpetrators or reparations paying for the reconstruction of Ukraine? So Anton, you'll start. Yeah, so the special tribunal which we are trying to establish is a matter of course of individual criminal responsibility. So the outcome is a judgment of verdict. So legally per se it's not, we do not see that it is legally and technically linked to the issue of reparations or compensations. So it is about criminal responsibility of a person. But of course we do understand that it might have some impact on other things in particular on the issue of reparations. So the absolute victory if I may say so will be of course getting this maybe top 20. Again this will be for the tribunal to establish alleged suspects on the bench and getting them prosecuted for the crime of aggression against Ukraine which as I mentioned I'm sure that their crime is a crime of aggression. They are not just war criminals. I mean war criminals to be war criminals is also bad but it's like the crime of aggression in such a particular situation I think is a more agreeable thing. So having them on the bench of course would be a victory but I really share the idea that having the procedure and process itself, having indictments, having arrest warrants which will be recognized and legitimized by our partners, it will be already an important step, an important element to heaven justice. So on the way to the absolute victory there may be very important steps and elements which may get out there. And actually such a tribunal with due respect to the fact that it may have jurisdiction and it shall have jurisdiction in relation to crime progression itself. So the one crime and not a big bunch of persons who might be allegedly suspect there it should not be such a big machinery as the ICC, ICTY, ICTR even Sierra Leone. So we do think that we can frame it in such a way that it will not be a burden for international community. Can I just jump in and supplement Anton's excellent statement by saying that there is one opportunity here which is I think you have your case in the international court of justice at this time, the genocide case. And of course there might be further litigation for Ukraine before the ICJ, before this is out. That would be the state responsibility court, the international court of justice. It is actually important if there can be convictions for whether it be the ICC baskets of crimes that are being prosecuted, war crimes, crimes against humanity, possibly genocide, or the special and or the special tribunals crime of aggression, if you can actually get convictions on those, the international court of justice would take notice of that in terms of reaching its own conclusions about state responsibility for the crime of aggression, which would be the big time reparations effort that Ukraine might pursue against Russia in the international court of justice if jurisdiction can be successfully argued. You would have to, I'm sure have to be under the genocide convention and you'd have to work those arguments out. But the point being that the international court of justice with respect to the Balkans took the convictions of the Shrebenica genocide very much into account in then determining that Serbia was responsible under the genocide convention for failing to prevent genocide at Shrebenica and for failing to properly prosecute, I think it was Milatice at that time, for that crime at Shrebenica. So state responsibility was thus established by the international court of justice based upon the work of the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal on criminal law against the perpetrators of the genocide at Shrebenica. Mr. Schiller, this is just to mention that since David mentioned our case in allegations of genocide in the Hague, we have our big friend, Marni Cik here today with us from Pomenton in Berlin with whom we work on that issue and we really appreciate the support and I think we're doing great there, if I may say so. I think you're doing great there too. And there are other questions that I wanna be sure we get to, but I would like to come back to this question of genocide. I mean, we should not just run by this. I mean, we should not be numb to this notion. Genocide, there's an obligation on the part of the international community to prevent it. And if it's ongoing now, my question's gonna be, do we need a legal determination of genocide or not? But we'll come back to that. There are a couple of other questions here. Yes, ma'am, aha. Thank you very much. Viola Ganger with Just Security. I was interested to know from any of you, what is your sense of the direction of the international debate on this crime of aggression, the special tribunal for crime of aggression? Does it seem like it's going in that direction or is there more resistance than not? And what timeframe are we talking about? David, you had mentioned that it theoretically could be set up by May of next year. How likely do you see that at this point? And in terms of these sort of judicial processes being very lengthy over many, many years, we saw that of course with Bosnia especially, but also with the other tribunals. Is there some realistic way of shortening those timeframes in the interest of the victims and in the interest of global justice and accountability? Well, the first part of your question, Anton, you weren't talking about just kind of the momentum or the direction and then the second part for David. Yeah, thank you. If I may comment also. Please, of course. Briefly on all the issues. So concerning momentum, I think that I hear quite often from our colleagues and partners who tell us that we could not anticipate in March when pretty much a lot of people said that that's impossible. But today the mindset is, well, it is possible. So I think that in these nine months, we got this understanding. And looking at how the things are moving, I think that the basement, the idea, the imperative that there must be accountability for the crime of aggression against Ukraine is there. So I think that now we are either already in a point or getting to the point where this issue may not be neglected. And I think that this is a very important moment which lead us to the question that the issue is not if but how. So I think that what we do here now from our partners is that there are possibilities to work on this. And we do feel this. And you also, of course, feel this through the soul, I mean conversations and statements and work on the matter. Let's see what EU Council says about this in December on the meeting of 15th and 16th of December. Maybe some moments will be there. Just small introductions concerning the timeframe. If it were only for the Ukrainian side, we would have already done that. But of course to do that, we need political will from our partners. But we are so, I would say, into the aesthetic in moving forward on that direction that for us we would do whatever we can to make it a speedy process. And concerning the long procedures, we all know that the crime of aggression has a specific feature. It is rather easy to prove. And in particular in such a situation as we do have now. So I think this might be a part of an answer to this question. And I would just add absolutely on that last point the crime of aggression has a magnitude and a self-evident character to it with respect to Ukraine since February at least. And of course one can stretch it back to 2014 as well. That establishing that act of aggression is not going to be that difficult. That can be done by the special tribunal. But in terms of your question about timing, I would just reiterate that when we did this in the 1990s, it simply takes a force of political will, frankly, at the United Nations. And I had the good luck of working for Ambassador Madeline Albright, who was a force all of herself. And she just pressed forward and I followed and we got these things done. So you have to have political will up at the United Nations. And right now there is that political will. Ambassador Christian Ivanovesar of Liechtenstein who led for many years the effort to actually get the crime of aggression defined, activated, ratified. He is now at the head of a similar effort at the United Nations to actually get the special tribunal moving. So once the General Assembly takes that act of a resolution to authorize the negotiations, then just like with Rwanda as I recall, we got that going in late September of 1994 and by October we were in conference rooms at the UN negotiating and the negotiations completed themselves basically by the end of October of 1994. So it can be done and then it formally gets set up through law and resolutions. And then you have to again have political will to get the necessary resources marshaled, the funding marshaled in order to get the tribunal actually established. Thank you, David. Yes, right here, yes. Thank you so much, hello everybody. This is an excellent panel. My name is Roxalana Winona and I am a graduate of the Joseph Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. I'm a Crane American activist and human rights activist and I am part of different organizations that help Ukraine. I just, I have a kind of a two part question I guess for our Ukrainian distinguished guests. How far back are you planning to focus the tribunal on because as you know, Ukrainian history is very complicated and there have been so many forms of Russian aggression throughout Ukraine's history. I mean, I'm a child of Ukrainian refugees that were displaced because of Joseph Stalin and I was born first generation in the U.S. And so there's so many crimes that haven't even been recognized yet, what Russia has done. So obviously we need to focus on what's happening today with the ongoing terrorism and genocide. But I was just curious to know if the Ukrainian government will look at other parts of crimes, other parts of history that have been committed and if maybe separate tribunals need to be set up. I know that the ambassador mentioned the challenges with the Pol Pot in 1970. So the further back we go in history with people dying out it may be more complicated, but I think it's necessary and I'm wondering if it's possible to even look at other parts of history. And also about 2014, will that be included with this tribunal or will be like a separate one just dealing with Crimea and Luhansk and Donetsk? So if you could please talk about that. Thank you so much. Thank you. Lessa, do you want to start? I will start, yes. I will start. Yes, thank you very much for this question. You're absolutely right. We have very complicated history and we had a lot of different acts of aggression from Russia. And actually the war started in 2014, I mean this war when we started to fight with Russia troops in our western eastern part of our country. So as we now plan it will be ad hoc special tribunal for the crime of aggression from the beginning I suppose from 2014 till now. And we would like to complement international criminal code in this issue to prosecute and to punish in the crime of aggression. But of course you are absolutely right. Then in future we have to think about the prosecution, about the investigation, all other cases. And we have to demonstrate all democratic world that it's impossible to do with any country in future. Thank you. If I may also maybe just small additions from the legal point of view. So of course I do share and our Ukrainian team we do have the same position that the Resonate Emporist Jurisdiction shall start since 2014 and this aggression is a continuing crime. And I mean I myself worked as a presidency representative for Crimea for almost three years. I may not have other position because I know the people and how they suffer from the Russian aggression we started in 2014. So we do believe that this should be the starting point. On the other hand there are some lawyers which do consider that starting with 2022 might be an easier thing due to the fact that in 2022 we got what we didn't have in 2014. The UN General Assembly Resolution was a recognition of an act of aggression. But what I want to mention is that these temporal jurisdiction issues are really not in top of the, I mean everybody understand that we can discuss, we can consider and we will find the way out. So of course for us 2014. And maybe also an important addition that what you mentioned is really important that this idea and this endeavor, these efforts to establish a special tribunal does not undermine all the other crimes and all the other atrocities. All these tens of thousands of war crimes of crimes against humanity which take place now and of course which our people fell from Russia. Look we are for 100 years fighting for our independence from that neighbor if I may say so. All that atrocity crimes which are taking place now, they do fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and National Courts of Ukraine. So the reason why do we advocate and talk about the special tribunal is to fill the loophole and gap which exists but it doesn't mean of course that all the other things should not be covered. There should be comprehensive accountability which means that all the examples and all the instances they get the legal response and reaction. Just to add one minute back in 1994 with Rwanda that was precisely the argument presented by the Tutsi government. They said you must have the temporal jurisdiction earlier than just January 1, 1994 because we've been subjected to genocidal actions by the Hutu government long before January 1 of 1994. That became a subject of intense negotiation in New York between well the lawyers for the powers at the table as well as the UN lawyers and then the Rwanda and Tutsi government which of course had prevailed against the Hutus and the genocide conflict in 1994. And they wanted to nail the Hutus for everything prior to 1994. But ultimately the negotiation settled on just the calendar year 1994. And that was just a long negotiation as Anton says it's up for discussion. And I would leave that to the negotiators to resolve. We have time for one last question. I have an online question. We have an online question please. Yeah, so are you concerned that the establishment of a special tribunal to try the Russian leadership could hamper potential future peace negotiations? Potential. Potential peace negotiations. Well, do you want to take that either of you or? Thank you for this question. As our ambassador Oksana Markander ever mentioned, we tried to start negotiation with Russia in the beginning of this war. We had a special delegation for this process but it was not negotiation, it was something like ultimatum from that side. And of course it's impossible now to negotiate in another another way than President Zelensky proposed 10 main steps which we need to start this negotiation. But in any case, as I told in the beginning of our discussion, all Ukrainian people needs justice. So in any case, we need to establish a special tribunal is the answer for our people. We need to prosecute this crime of aggression. We need to punish in this crime. And only after this, we need also to negotiate. May Ben turn the... Just I think that having this plan of President Zelensky, we are here to realize it, to implement it. And this tribunal is needed for bringing justice and for addressing key perpetrators of this aggressive war. So it might be an important step. And I think one of the German high level politicians mentioned on a public discussion in Berlin in October that a Nuremberg tribunal was a gift to German nation. So maybe we will save Russian nation by doing this. Let's do that. A great gift. And I would say that the horse is already out of the barn. The international criminal court is already knee deep in investigations on three other baskets of crimes. And we're still talking about the possibility of peace negotiations at some point. The justice wagon has left. I mean, it's gone. I mean, it's happening. To add the special tribunal to that, I don't think makes that much of a difference on that calculus in terms of the thinking of the Russian leaders with respect to negotiations. Recall that I find it difficult to find an example in history, in recent history, where by affirmatively withholding international justice, criminal justice, there is an example of peace negotiations surging forward and everyone's at peace and society is stable. That just doesn't work that way with the perpetrators of atrocity crimes. Withholding international criminal justice, I think can even be counterproductive, whereas by slamming forward and ultimately getting those indictments, you can actually pressure them to come to the peace table. David, absolutely right. That's what I was trying to say earlier, when we say we need a just peace, a lasting peace, a durable peace, which you don't have if you don't have justice and we've made that point, you all have made that point over and over. So let me do my last duty as moderator here and thanking Lesia, Anton, David for there and ask you to join me in that thanking of this panel. Thank you. Excellent panel. And it is now my great pleasure to invite Ambassador John Herbst, our co-sponsor of this event. Yes, to the, and we'll just stay here and John, floor is yours. Bill, thank you. I'd like to thank Bill and USIP for taking the lead on this event. I'd like to thank Ambassador Makatova for the Ukrainian Embassy joining this event and of course, from the Atlanta Council, I'm here to say we're also part of it. I'm delighted for that last question because it speaks to what I wanted to get in these remarks. There is a history, a important history of bringing international war criminals to justice and especially Ambassador Sheffer went through that referring to war criminals from Liberia, Rwanda, Cambodia, Serbia, who were brought to justice. Now, of course, all of those countries are relatively speaking small countries. But then we have the example of the Nuremberg trials and the trials of senior German and Japanese officials. Two major powers and their citizens' war criminals were brought to justice. Over there, we're talking about two large powers that unconditionally surrendered in a world war. And sadly, that's not what anyone is talking about here. I know of no one, and I pay a great deal of attention to this subject, who expects there to be the unconditional surrender by those war criminals in the Kremlin. Unfortunate, but I think highly likely we won't see that. So what's the purpose of this? What is the purpose of going after collecting data on the myriad war crimes committed, putting that data against individuals, high-level individuals whose names are in the newspapers, lower-level individuals who commit their atrocities not in the light of day. And there are, in fact, three good reasons for the effort represented by the very excellent panel we've had this morning. And the first is my job, as I see it, is to be one of the small helping hands to ensure that Putin loses in Ukraine. And let me tell you this effort, and Ambassador Shefford mentioned this a little bit in the answer to the last question, is very much part of defeating the Kremlin. How's that? By assembling this data and making it public, we are helping to undermine this criminal enterprise that the Russians are conducting in Ukraine. Now, I don't say that just out of the air, grasping for reasons to justify this activity. For those of you who follow Russia, you know that they have more than their share of propagandists. And perhaps the two most prominent Russian propagandists are Madame Simonon, the head of Russian TV, RT, and Vladimir Solovyov. And on mainstream Russian TV, which means on truly bizarre TV, just a couple of weeks ago, they were lamenting that senior Russian officials, unnamed, were talking about the Hague. This is helping to undermine the morale of the bad guys conducting this war and bringing this to the attention of the entire Russian people. Not a bad thing to do. That's the most important reason for this. The second was also mentioned in the course of the panel, though not as a principal thing. Right now, there are approximately 300 billion Russian assets frozen in the international financial system. Now, you talk to Bill, you talk to me, we'll say it's a no-brainer. Russia has destroyed more than that amount of resources in Ukraine, give it to the Ukrainians. Now, we have this wonderful international financial system, which goes, credit back to Bretton Woods, when we talk about the international-based war loader, goes back to Bretton Woods and other places after, right after World War II. And the green eye-shade types who are very much in charge of these institutions say, well, wait a minute, we can't do that. That's completely out of the procedures we have. We've established. Now, they're right about that. But guess what? When Putin began this large war in Ukraine and this big invasion, he busted a wide open, that system. He pushed an extraordinary event in place involving deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, the kidnapping of children, the raping of women. You know the list of war crimes we're talking about. It's time to move beyond the green eye-shade regulations that have dominated the system. Someone needs to understand that. And this effort helps drive that home. So that's the second very good reason for doing this. And the third one is very simple. Now, I said, no one expects unconditional surrender from Russia, and I'd be willing to bet many things that that would not happen, although I've been wrong before, but it's quite possible that as a result of the coming Kremlin defeat in Ukraine, there will be serious changes in Russia. Because this war is very much Putin's war. There have been enough helping hands for them in this war, but it's very much Putin's war. In circumstances like that, I do not completely rule out the possibility we could find Putin, or Shoygu, or Gikin Strelkov in the dock somewhere in Europe. So Godspeed to you, and to all of you who can do this. I can't, but I can certainly applaud. And maybe we should all applaud on this one. Thank you, John. Thank you all for joining us, both here and online. We'll continue this dialogue. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.