YPIN: Crimes of Aggression in Ukraine with Professor Frederick Lorenz

The Crime of Aggression (Crime Against Peace) has not been prosecuted since 1944. Complex and contradictory forces are at work in the development of accountability mechanisms for the Ukraine War. Despite the availability of new documentation and investigation mechanisms, such as video and digital files, the sheer number and scope of war crimes seems overwhelming. And despite the expansive development of international humanitarian law during the international tribunal era (between 2005 and 2015), we are left today with no suitable mechanism to deal with the most serious of international crimes.

The current focus on the Crime of Aggression in the Ukraine War is difficult because no realistic path exists to bring Russian leaders to justice for that crime. If an accountability mechanism is found, and the Crime of Aggression is charged, the trial will certainly enter a complex and lengthy phase to compare previous interventions by Western powers based on theories of self-defense or protection of vulnerable populations. But there is more than adequate evidence to move ahead to investigate and prosecute the other atrocity crimes. Power and politics must be carefully weighed in the pursuit of peace and justice in Ukraine.

Join us on December 8th at 7pm with Professor Michael Lorenz for a discussion on international humanitarian law in the Ukraine War and the current mechanisms in place to convict offenders of Crimes of Aggression.

About the Speaker

Professor Frederick Lorenz served a career in the US Marine Corps as a judge advocate, retiring as a colonel in 1998. He obtained an LLM (With Highest Honors) from George Washington University in Land Use Management and Control and practiced environmental/land use law between 1982 and 1991. In 1992 he joined the First Marine Expeditionary Force and was the senior legal advisor for the United Nations authorized military intervention in Somalia. He returned there as senior legal advisor for the UN evacuation in 1995. In 1996 he served in Bosnia as a senior legal advisor for the NATO implementation force, and went on to teach Political Science at the National Defense University. In 1998 he spent a year as a Fulbright Senior Scholar in St Petersburg, Russia, teaching courses in international law, environmental law and US foreign policy. In 2000 he served as a United Nations Legal Affairs officer in Kosovo, working in the UN Civil Administration. For more than 20 years, Professor Lorenz was a Senior Lecturer at the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, teaching courses on international humanitarian law, diplomacy, and water scarcity in the Middle East.