Fair trial rights and the prosecution of alleged atrocities in Ukraine

Professor Jonathan Hafetz is an expert on constitutional law, national security, human rights, and international criminal law. He joined Seton Hall Law School in 2010. Professor Hafetz is the author of the books, Punishing Atrocities through a Fair Trial: International Criminal Law from Nuremberg to the Age of Global Terrorism (Cambridge Univ. Press 2018), and Habeas Corpus after 9/11: Confronting America’s New Global Detention System (NYU Press 2011), which received the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award for Media and the Arts, Honorable Mention, and the American Society of Legal Writers, Scribes Silver Medal Award. He is also the editor of Obama’s Guantanamo: Stories from an Enduring Prison (NYU Press 2016) and the co-editor (with Mark Denbeaux) of The Guantanamo Lawyers: Inside a Prison Outside the Law (NYU Press 2009). Professor Hafetz’s scholarship has appeared in numerous publications. Professor Hafetz received a Fulbright Scholarship award for Japan in 2021-2022. From 2014-15, Professor Hafetz was a Visiting Research Scholar in the Program in Law and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Professor Hafetz is an internationally recognized constitutional and human rights lawyer. Prior to joining Seton Hall, he was a senior attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, a litigation director at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, and a John J. Gibbons Fellow in Public Interest and Constitutional Law at Gibbons, P.C. From 2017-2020, Professor Hafetz was on leave from Seton Hall Law as a senior attorney at the ACLU. Professor Hafetz has represented prisoners in locations across the globe and litigated landmark cases challenging arbitrary detention, rendition, and torture. Professor Hafetz has testified before Congress, and frequently provides expert commentary for major media outlets and news programs. His op-eds have appeared in many publications including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Review, Slate, The Hill, The Nation, Politico, and The Guardian. He is a frequent blogger for Balkinization, Just Security, and other web sites. Professor Hafetz is the former chair of the New York City Bar Task Force on National Security and the Rule of Law. He has lectured widely both in the United States and abroad. In 2020, Professor Hafetz was named to the List of Experts for the International Criminal Court at The Hague. Professor Hafetz is the creator and editor of the podcast, Law on Film, which looks at law through film, and film through law (https://www.buzzsprout.com/2073468) Professor Hafetz earned his J.D. from Yale Law School. He holds an M. Phil in Modern History from Oxford University and a B.A. from Amherst College. Following law school, Professor Hafetz served as a law clerk to Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and Judge Sandra L. Lynch of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

Elsa is a criminal defence lawyer and has worked on cases defending those accused of the most serious criminal offences, including sexual assault and luring, possession for the purpose of trafficking, and second-degree murder. Her focus is on providing solutions and securing results for those whom she represents. She has appeared at all levels of court, including the Provincial Court of British Columbia, the Supreme Court of British Columbia, The British Columbia Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court of Canada. She practices law on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish Peoples, Vancouver, British Columbia. She is Kiwi-Canadian. She completed her MA in International Law and Security in 2005 in the United Kingdom and her LLM at Columbia, New York City in 2020. She was selected to work on the High-Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, the joint UK/Canadian Task Force led by Amal Clooney. Her work has focused extensively on the rule of law and the intersection of power, legitimacy, and responsibility in international law. She serves as the Events Officer for the IBA War Crimes committee, and as the EDI Officer for the Human Rights Committee. She is currently involved with a broader IBA capacity building initiative in Ukraine regarding the adjudication of alleged war crimes, reviewing decisions with a view for identifying issues concerning compliance with international best standards. Before she embarked on her legal career, a passion for international relations detoured her down a path in international law and security and experience at institutions including NORAD, NATO and Whitehall. It was while working at the United Nations in Rwanda, (managing a disarmament and reintegration program for militia soldiers from the office where Romeo Dallaire attempted to stop the genocide), that she came to understand both the importance of cultural humility and the power of law as a tool for meaningful change. Elsa suffered setbacks early in her career after a car accident but returned to practice while managing chronic pain. She has guest lectured at the Peter A. Allard School of Law (UBC) and speaks on panels, most recently GLC: Womxn in Law Series-ITLs, diversity and inclusion. She serves as a Board member at the Trial Lawyers of British Columbia, co-chair of the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee and sits on the Criminal Committee. She has served as a judge at the International Criminal Court Moot Court Competition (ICCMCC), the largest competition on international criminal law, at The Hague.

Zlata Symonenko specialises in the areas of criminal investigations and litigation. She is experienced in handling financial and corruption crime cases. Zlata represents clients through all aspects of criminal litigation and regulatory enforcement actions, from the initiation of a criminal case to court hearings, including investigative actions. She also has considerable experience of appeals to the European Court of Human Rights. In addition to her legal practice, Zlata is actively involved in legislation drafting. In particular, she took part in drafting the laws on National Police, National Anticorruption Bureau, Financing of political parties and fighting against political corruption.