Please join the Fletcher Eurasia Club for a lunch seminar with Professor Tom Dannenbaum on the international legal implications of the Russia-Ukraine war as it pertains to criminal justice and accountability.

The Russian Federation is currently in the midst of an illegal war of aggression against Ukraine. Multiple credible reports indicate that its troops have engaged in widespread war crimes and other violations of international humanitarian and international criminal law in the course of that aggression. Isolated violations have also been reported on the Ukrainian side. In response, states and organizations have engaged in unprecedented levels of coordination with a view to finding a path to accountability, recognizing the particular challenges associated with that pursuit in the situation at hand. At the domestic level, investigations are underway in numerous jurisdictions, some of which have seasoned war crimes accountability processes. Ukraine itself has already processed multiple criminal cases before its own courts. At the international level, in March of 2023, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for war crimes relating to the transfer of Ukrainian children out of occupied Ukraine and into Russia. Other ICC investigations continue. It is now likely that a special tribunal for the crime of aggression in Ukraine will be created, although the precise form that such a tribunal will take remains uncertain. The same can be said of a compensation commission for the assessment and distribution of reparations for illegally-caused harms. Separately, Ukraine has initiated interstate litigation against Russia before multiple international courts, including the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the European Court of Human Rights, and elsewhere. This session will chart the legal underpinnings of these efforts, particularly as they relate to criminal justice, and reflect upon the relevance of international law in a context of rampant violation.

We encourage you to read some relevant articles written by Professor Dannenbaum on the situation in Ukraine, including his analyses of the pros and cons of establishing a special tribunal for the crime of aggression, the use of starvation by Russia as a warfighting method, and the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam. The Eurasia Club weekly lunch seminar series engages with students, faculty, staff, and researchers to foster a better understanding of the region among members of the Fletcher community. Members of the wider Tufts community are also welcome to attend. Lunch will be served. Click here to register via myFletcher.

Tom Dannenbaum is Associate Professor of International Law at The Fletcher School, where he is also Co-Director of the Center for International Law and Governance and Co-Director of the LLM Program. Prior to joining Fletcher, he taught at University College London and Yale Law School. Dannenbaum writes on the law of armed conflict, the law governing the use of force, international criminal law, human rights, shared responsibility, and international judging. His articles have appeared in a range of leading journals and have received multiple awards, including the American Society of International Law’s (ASIL) International Legal Theory Scholarship Prize in 2022 for his work on siege starvation and ASIL’s Lieber Prize in 2017 for his work on the crime of aggression. His writing on peacekeeping has been cited by the Hague Court of Appeal and the International Law Commission. Dannenbaum’s book, The Crime of Aggression, Humanity, and the Soldier, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2018. In 2021, Dannenbaum was awarded the James L. Paddock Teaching Award. In 2022, he was awarded the Fletcher Faculty Research Award.