CivilMPlus welcomes the decision of the International Criminal Court to open an investigation into alleged war crimes related to the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine. For six years, since April 2014, the court has been conducting preliminary research of the events.

On December 11, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Ms. Fatou Bensouda, made a statement on the completion of the preliminary investigation of the Situation in Ukraine case: “Following a thorough and independent process, I can announce today that the statutory criteria for opening investigations into the situation in Ukraine are met”.

This means that the Office of the Prosecutor of the Court has collected and systematized available information on alleged war crimes. Ukrainian non-governmental organizations also collected data for the Court. “This is not yet a victory, but an important step in bringing to justice those who committed grave crimes during the Russian-Ukrainian war,” Valery Novikov wrote on his Facebook page. The Luhansk Oblast Human Rights Center “Alternativa” headed by him was among those organizations that collected information for the court, in particular, conducting in-depth interviews with victims of crimes.

Also, materials for the International Criminal Court were submitted by such Ukrainian organizations as the Center for Civil Liberties (4 submissions in collaboration with other organizations and 2 separate submissions), Truth Hounds (more than 500 cases in collaboration with other organizations and 3 separate submissions), the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (3 submissions) and the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union (4 submissions). All these organizations are members of the international civil society platform CivilMPlus.

In a statement, the Court’s prosecutor states: “My Office has concluded that there is a reasonable basis at this time to believe that a broad range of conduct constituting war crimes and crimes against humanity within the jurisdiction of the Court have been committed in the context of the situation in Ukraine. […] My Office furthermore found that these crimes, committed by the different parties to the conflict, were also sufficiently grave to warrant investigation by my Office, both in quantitative and qualitative terms.”

The prosecutor expressed hope for support from the Ukrainian authorities and called on all parties of the conflict to cooperate. The next step is to ask the judges of the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court to authorize investigations.

Original statement in English.