On the occasion of the Day of Legality organised annually by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France, the Department of International Law was invited by the Embassy of France to Malta to co-host a public lecture entitled Investigating War Crimes in Ukraine. The public lecture was delivered at the Valletta Campus by Ms Clara Gerard-Rodriguez, a French international lawyer who spent several months in Ukraine assisting in investigating war crimes committed on Ukrainian territory in the course of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ms Gerard-Rodriguez explained the evolution and basic tenets of international criminal law before proceeding to discuss the challenges associated with the investigation and prosecution of war crimes in the Ukrainian context.
The complexities around the collection of evidence, the protection of witnesses and the competing interests of domestic and international jurisdictions were all analysed. The lecture ended with a call for the need to strengthen the infrastructure of international criminal justice. The lecture was followed by a Question and Answer session. The Ambassador of France, H.E. Sandrine Lelong-Motta introduced the event while Prof. Omar Grech from the Department of International Law, Mr Steven Hill, Executive Secretary, Institute for Justice and Rule of Law and Ms Maria Zavalska, Deputy Chairperson of the Foundation for the Ukrainian Community in Malta also addressed the audience before the lecture.
The complexities around the collection of evidence, the protection of witnesses and the competing interests of domestic and international jurisdictions were all analysed. The lecture ended with a call for the need to strengthen the infrastructure of international criminal justice. The lecture was followed by a Question and Answer session. The Ambassador of France, H.E. Sandrine Lelong-Motta introduced the event while Prof. Omar Grech from the Department of International Law, Mr Steven Hill, Executive Secretary, Institute for Justice and Rule of Law and Ms Maria Zavalska, Deputy Chairperson of the Foundation for the Ukrainian Community in Malta also addressed the audience before the lecture.
