Transitional justice in Ukraine?

In this episode, Dr Rachel Killean from the School of Law is joined by Professor Louise Mallinder for a conversation about transitional justice in Ukraine. Louise is Professor of Law at Queen's University Belfast, where she conducts research in the fields of international human rights law, international criminal law, and law and politics in political transitions. Between early 2019 and late 2021, Louise worked as an international consultant, supporting public officials and civil society in Ukraine. At the time, this group were developing a legal framework to enable the reintegration of the territory and people from temporarily occupied territories in Ukraine, including annexed Crimea and the self-proclaimed autonomous Republics in eastern Ukraine. This work has obviously been overtaken by the recent escalation of conflict. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in March this year, Louise has been reflecting on the potential role of transitional justice in Ukraine’s uncertain future, and what lessons can be learned from the transitional justice work that has already been carried out in Ukraine in recent years. In April 2022, she published a blog on QUB’s QPol website in which she contextualised the current conversations about international accountability for crimes perpetrated in Ukraine and outlined some of the recent debates about what a transition could look like. The blog is available here.