Violation of international law and documentation of Russian war crimes

What is international humanitarian law?

International humanitarian law (IHL) is a component of international law that was developed to protect human rights, civilians, and innocent victims during armed conflicts. The primary objective of IHL is to limit the means and methods of conducting military operations to prevent unnecessary suffering, torture, and discrimination using international norms and customs.

Documentation of Russian war crimes

Ukraine’s Office of the Prosecutor General has registered more than 68,000 war crimes since February 24, 2022. "We are the first country to investigate war crimes during an ongoing full-scale war. This is an unprecedented challenge for our entire justice system. But we have survived the first, most difficult days of the war and are continuing to do our jobs, coordinating law enforcement agencies, representing the state’s interests in courts, and documenting war crimes," Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin argued.

One of the civil society organizations playing a vital role in providing information on war crimes to international bodies and institutions, contributing to justice, and bringing perpetrators to justice is the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union (UHHRU). The organization’s primary roles include monitoring and documentation, legal support, advocacy and protection of rights, liaison with international organizations, analysis and research. UHHRU is actively monitoring and documenting human rights violations and war crimes during this war.

"We collect testimonies, facts, evidence and information that can be used in international courts, including visiting remote settlements in the south to interview witnesses," Movchan said.

UHHRU maintains close ties with international human rights organizations, such as the International Criminal Court, the UN Committees on Human Rights Violations by Russia during the Armed Conflict in Ukraine, the European Court of Human Rights, and others, in order to transfer documented information on war crimes and gross human rights violations.

"UHHRU analyzes and studies documented information on war crimes, which allows us to find out the circumstances and perpetrators of potential violations of international law," Serhiy Movchan, the head of the documentation department of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, explained.

UHHRU advocates for the protection of human rights, promotion of justice, and prosecution of perpetrators by national and international bodies.

Two initiatives were established in Ukraine to ensure accountability for those responsible: the global Tribunal for Putin (T4P) initiative and the Ukraine 5 AM Coalition of Human Rights Organizations. Participants from both coalitions work towards a common goal – documenting events in Ukraine where human rights are violated and crimes are committed that breach the Rome Statute, the Geneva Conventions and other treaties on the laws of war. Among these crimes are genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed by Russia in all regions of Ukraine.

"Organizations that are part of the Coalition quickly united at the beginning of the full-scale war, even though the evidence collection process significantly differed from what we had before 2022. We started documenting information from open sources, relying on the Berkeley Protocol, and for two months, we carried out intensive training of teams and volunteers to work according to this standard. However, since April, the amount of information has become so vast that it has become unrealistic to document everything being shared on Telegram, Facebook, and YouTube," a representative of Ukraine 5 AM Coalition explained.

Collaboration with the International Organization to Create the Ukrainian Archive Digital Database

This initiative has allowed the Ukraine 5 AM Coalition to change its approach to preserving and analyzing information about war crimes, moving away from the Berkeley Protocol to ensure greater accuracy and integrity of data.

"Through collaboration with an international organization specializing in creating digital databases, the Coalition gained the ability to use a specialized system for automatic information collection from open sources," the Coalition explained.

This system operates according to a specific algorithm that ensures information is used in an unaltered format and is not subject to manipulation or modification. Systematic and automated information collection from open sources in this format has several advantages. Firstly, it allows us to confirm the authenticity of the data and its independence from third-party influences. Secondly, this approach simplifies analyzing and processing information, increasing speed and accuracy.

"As of today, this archive contains around 5 million preserved messages from Telegram channels, Facebook pages, and other social media," the Coalition says.

Creating a digital database of open-source information is an essential step towards ensuring justice and accountability for war crimes committed in Ukraine.

Cooperation with International Institutions

The T4P group collaborates with international organizations, including the United Nations, the European Union, and the International Criminal Court.

"The main goal of the T4P initiative is to utilize existing mechanisms of international cooperation and justice to prevent similar brutal crimes in the future and bring those responsible for them to justice," stated a representative of the initiative.

Undoubtedly, this goal should not be limited to holding individual perpetrators accountable - it is also essential to hold states responsible for facilitating aggression or failing to take appropriate actions to stop Russia as an aggressor country.

Among the international organizations that actively cooperate with Ukrainian human rights advocates and researchers are the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) (Europol) and the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust). In cooperation with Europol and Eurojust, the primary aim of the Ukraine 5 AM Coalition is to provide existing evidence and ensure it is utilized in various national jurisdictions and international judicial processes. Thanks to the Coalition's data storage in secure cloud services, this collaboration preserves valuable information and ensures its accessibility in future judicial proceedings, including at the International Criminal Court and in national courts.

"Since April of last year, in collaboration with the Case Matrix Network, we have been creating a unified database of collected testimonies, which aims to accumulate all the data we gather to avoid duplication, enhance documentation, and conduct joint investigations and analytical studies," the Coalition says.

Furthermore, Ukraine 5 AM Coalition and T4P actively collaborate with national investigative bodies to facilitate the creation of a broad coalition to respond to these crimes. The events in Ukraine pose a real challenge to international justice, and their resolution requires a united approach.

Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has violated the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, and the path to accountability for war crimes can only be achieved through adherence to international norms and customs. Those who violate these principles must be held accountable for their actions before the international community.

Today, human rights organizations continue to work on the front lines, collecting testimonies, documenting facts, and aiding in establishing criminal responsibility. The emergence of both these initiatives is a powerful example of the strength of civil activism that can counter aggression and ensure the protection of human rights and international law.