The Center for Civil Liberties Participated in a Round Table on Implementing the Rome Statute
On 16 January, Volodymyr Yavorskyy, Program Director of the Center for Civil Liberties, and Kostiantyn Zadoia, member of the Organisation’s Expert Council, attended an expert round table on the implementation of the Rome Statute. This event was organized in Kyiv by the USAID Justice for All Activity and concerned legislative amendments related to the adoption of the implementing law towards the ratification of the Rome Statute.
Human rights defenders, judges, public prosecutors, investigators, advocates, researchers, members of the Parliament of Ukraine, representatives of the Office of the President of Ukraine, experts from international and Ukrainian non-governmental organisations, etc., engaged in the discussion. They thoroughly explored the current legislative approaches to identify which of them was the most appropriate for incorporating all types of war crimes under the Rome Statute into the national legislation to ensure that war crime cases are effectively investigated and heard in courts. They also identified the gaps and challenges to be addressed, as well as how to support national partners in this process and within the current framework of the comprehensive strategy.Kostiantyn Zadoia delivered his address at the panel “A Scholarly View of the Legislative Amendments Introduced by the Adoption of the Implementation Law to the Rome Statute and Their Impact on Practical Administration of Law”. Meanwhile, Volodymyr Yavorskyy spoke on the topic “Assessment by International Organisations and National Non-Governmental Organisations of the Quality of Legislative Amendments Introduced by the Adoption of the Implementation Law to the Rome Statute”.
“We agreed that a group would be established at the General Prosecutor’s Office, where the Center of Civil Liberties would be a member. Within its framework, we will finally develop legislation on international crimes to be adopted this year. The Center for Civil Liberties plays a crucial role in this process, representing human rights organisations. We were engaged in promoting the ratification of the Rome Statute, stood against draft laws 11538 and 11539 and agreed that they would be removed from the Parliament’s agenda and there would be a new one instead”, Volodymyr Yavorskyy, Program Director of the Center for Civil Liberties, said.
The expert round table should result in a comprehensive strategy for implementing the Rome Statute to be developed by the national partners. In this process, they should bear in mind the priorities of the criminal justice system bodies of Ukraine and the need to guarantee fair trial standards.
