Today, Anton Korynevych, Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Darya Svyrydoba, the First Deputy participated at the discussion panels of the scientific – practical conference “International criminal Justice: Ukrainian perspective”, dedicated to the implementation of the international criminal law in the national legislation of Ukraine. The conference was held within the framework of the Week of International Criminal Justice, co-organized by the Center for Civil Liberties, Ukrainian Association of International Law, Department of Criminal Law Policy and Criminal Law of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Mission of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Verkhovna Rada Committee on Law.
Anton Korynevych took part at the discussion on “Cooperation between Ukraine and the International Criminal Court: will it live up to the expectations?”. He spoke in the context of an international armed conflict about the need for Ukraine to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. “We need an international criminal court because it is an international mechanism. This is not only the position of Ukraine that a certain citizen of the Russian Federation is responsible for committing such crimes against humanity or such war crimes, but, accordingly, the point of view of the staff of the Prosecutor’s Office of the International Criminal Court, judges of the Chamber of Preliminary Proceedings, that is, it legitimizes what, actually, Ukraine is doing independently at its own level.
“We need an international criminal court because it is an international mechanism. This is not only the position of the state of Ukraine that a certain citizen of the Russian Federation is responsible for committing such crimes against humanity or such war crimes, but as well as the point of view of the staff of the Prosecutor’s Office of the International Criminal Court, judges of the Chamber of Preliminary Proceedings, that Ukraine is actually does at its level.
This is the view of the body that is currently the only permanent organ of international criminal justice. This is important because not only Ukraine but also the International Criminal Court will be talking about such things. aSecondly, if the Russian Federation does not extradite its nationals in the near future, but still warrants of arrest for war crimes and crimes against humanity from the International Criminal Court are a record at the level of the ICM of such crimes “, Permanent Representative noted in his statement.
Darya Svyrydova took part at the discussion panel “Harmonization of the national criminal proceedings with the International Criminal Law: Ukrainian case of 2015”
“Implementation of the transitional justice approaches, implementation of international humanitarian law, national legislation and national practice it is not only the obligation of the state, prescribed in the adopted state documents, for instance in the Strategy on depccupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol” which our Mission has been working on as well.
This document among the basic principles, identifies challenges for State in implementing transitional justice approaches, such as documenting and prosecuting those involved in serious crimes in armed conflict. It is no longer simply a State responsibility, but also a given strategic direction. Equally important, I believe that, according to a number of studies, one of the biggest requests from society to the State on how to overcome the consequences of war is the investigation of serious crimes, committed in the context of war and the prosecution of the perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity”, the first deputy Permanent Representative told.
The Mission is thankful to everybody involved in the expert discussion of the important issues which significantly influence on the processes of reintegration and deoccupation of the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine, including juridical reputation of Ukraine in the world.