
Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has gone from atrocity to atrocity. Some of the brutalities which have occurred include evidence of torture, mass murder, large scale war crimes and even crimes bearing the hallmarks of genocide. The Pileski Institute in Berlin in cooperation with the Center for Liberal Modernity hosted an international conference “Russia’s War of aggression against Ukraine: Challenges in documenting and prosecuting war crimes” between the 1st and 3rd February 2022. The underlying theme addressed across the conference was accountability; What must the world do now to document alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity and hold those responsible for the crimes to account? Members of the UNWCC steering committee attended the conference (pictured above) where Prof. Dan Plesch presented a collaborative paper “Precedents and practice for the Ukraine: The UNWCC indictments of Adolf Hitler, myths of head of state immunity, domestic and International indictments after WWII”. The presentation focused on potential lessons to be drawn from the history of UNWCC charge files and post-World War II indictments for the current debate on head of state immunity.