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Accountability for Wartime Environmental Crimes: Legal Pathways, Community Voices, and International Responsibility
20 June - 16:00 - 17:00
Date and time: 20 June 2025, 16:00 – 17:00 CET
Venue: United Nations Palais des Nations, Geneva, Conference Room XXV
Live streaming on Facebook; https://fb.me/e/3fv9ViuXV
Organisers: No Peace Without Justice, Truth Hounds, Prosecutor’s General Office of Ukraine, Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the United Nations Office and other International Organizations in Geneva
The side-event aims to raise visibility of Ukraine’s documentation and accountability efforts. Ukrainian civil society and authorities have begun systematically documenting environmental war crimes. Ukrainian NGOs, including Truth Hounds, have compiled over hundreds of cases of suspected environmental crimes. Yet, much of the harm is not yet systematically documented. This side event will spotlight those documentation efforts, share key findings to date, and underscore the need to complete documentation efforts at a standard that ensures high evidentiary value of the information collected.
The event also aims to advance legal and policy discussions on environmental crimes. The event will explore how existing law applies to such deliberate destruction. International humanitarian law explicitly prohibits methods of warfare “expected to cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment”, and many Russian actions qualify as war crimes, helping explore legal avenues for accountability and redress.
By gathering Ukrainian and international stakeholders, the side event will also lay groundwork for joint advocacy and support. It will outline the needs for technical support and resources (e.g. for forensic analysis, monitoring and remediation) and strengthen cooperation among NGOs, governments, and multilateral institutions working on environment and accountability.
Program
– Opening: Amb. Yevhen Tsymbaliuk, Permanent Representative of Ukraine
– Keynote Speech: Viktoriia Litvinova, Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine
– Patterns of Environmental Destruction: Dmytro Koval, Truth Hounds
– Voices from the Ground: Regional administration representatives, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine
– Discussion & Reactions: Moderated Q&A
– Closing: Niccolò Figà Talamanca, Secretary General of No Peace Without Justice
For more information, please contact Laura Zamperetti (lzamperetti@npwj.org) or Nicola Giovannini (ngiovannini@npwj.org)