War Crimes Committee Conference - Session 1: The situation in Ukraine

Matthew Gillett is an international lawyer who has investigated, prosecuted, and reported on human rights violations for around 15 years. He is the Director of the Peace and Justice Initiative and also works as a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) at the University of Essex. Previously, he worked at the International Criminal Court, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and other institutions. He has published extensively on matters related to international law and won the inaugural Benjamin Ferencz essay prize for his article on prosecuting aggression before the ICC.

Yuriy Belousov is the Head of Department in the Office of the Prosecutor-General of Ukraine, a position he has held for the last 3 years. He has over 15 years experience in human rights and law-enforcement. He has worked as a police officer, a United Nations Peace-Keeper, an NGO human rights activist, and now as a prosecutor. Since February 2022, the main focus of work is investigation of war crimes (particularly torture and enforced disappearances), and Prisoners of War issues (conditions of detention, exchanges, screening on war crimes involvement, and suchlike).

She was born on September 21, 1978 in the city of Kharkiv in a family of lawyers. She graduated from the Faculty of Management and Informatics of the Kharkiv National University of Internal Affairs with an honors degree, majoring in Law and Management. In 2003, she defended her PhD thesis “Agreement on trust management of property as a form of implementation of the legal doctrine of trust management of property in Ukraine” and received the degree of PhD in Law. In 2013, she defended her doctoral thesis: “Protection of legitimate interests in civil law” and received the degree of Doctor of Laws. She was Associate Professor of the Civil Law Department (2013) and Professor of the Civil Law Department (2014). Member of the editorial boards of scientific journals and specialized scientific councils. Deputy Chairman of the Editorial Board of the professional publication “Bulletin of V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. Law series”. She provided scientific guidance to postgraduate degree seekers majoring in civil law and civil procedure; family law; international private law. She was the chairman of specialized scientific councils at V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. She combined scientific and pedagogical work and practical professional activity. She was:  Arbitrator of the International Commercial Arbitration Court at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Ukraine;  Expert on Licensing and Accreditation of Universities of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine;  Leading Researcher of the Scientific and Research Institute of Legal Support of Innovative Development of the National Academy of Legal Science of Ukraine;  Member of the Scientific Advisory Board at the Supreme Court of Ukraine;  Member of the Ukrainian Law Society;  Member of the Foundation of Medical Law and Bioethics. The scientific achievements include more than 100 scientific and methodical papers published in domestic and foreign publications, including 8 monographs (including 4 chapters in collective monographs), 80 scientific and 4 educational publications. She was awarded with honorary distinctions:  Diploma of the Rector of V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University (2010);  V.N. Karazin Prize of the II degree (2013);  Diploma of the National Academy of Public Administration at the President of Ukraine and the Kharkiv Regional State Administration for the best work in the nomination “Scientific and methodical products in the field of public administration” (2014);  Letter of Acknowledgement of the National Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of Ukraine (2014);  Diploma of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine (2015). August 2019 - December 2019 – Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Legal Policy. On December 28, 2019, she was appointed to the position of acting Director of the State Bureau of Investigation. On March 17, 2020, she was appointed to the position of Prosecutor General.

Oksana Senatorova, PhD, Law Reform Commission of Ukraine under the President of Ukraine Oksana Senatorova, PhD, a founder and Director of the NGO "Centre for International Humanitarian Law and Transitional Justice" (CIHLTJ), Director of Research Centre for Transitional Justice (RCTJ) and an Associate Professor of the International Law Department at Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University, and Associate Professor at NaUKMA. She has almost 20 years of experience as a lecturer of international law, IHL, ICL, Human Rights and Transitional Justice courses in Ukraine and abroad. She defended her PhD "Procedural Aspects of the Activities of International Criminal Courts" in 2005. Nowadays, she is a member of the Law Reform Commission of Ukraine under the President of Ukraine, a Coordinator of the Working Group on the Protection of Victims of Armed Conflict of the Interdepartmental Commission on Implementation of IHL in Ukraine, an expert at the International Council on Crimes Committed in Armed Conflict at Ukraine's Office of Prosecutor General. Since 2005 she has been an expert for the ICRC Regional Delegations; since 2021 is a peer reviewer for the ICRC Commentary on the IV Geneva Convention 1949. Since 2021 has been an expert for the Council of Europe on the IDPs in Ukraine.

Provisional Ambassador Beth Van Schaack, PhD, US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice Ambassador Beth Van Schaack is the US State Department’s sixth Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice (GCJ). She served as Deputy to the Ambassador-at-Large in GCJ from 2012 to 2013. Prior to returning to public service in 2022, Ambassador Van Schaack was the Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor in Human Rights at Stanford Law School, where she taught international criminal law, human rights, human trafficking, and a policy lab on Legal & Policy Tools for Preventing Atrocities. In addition, she directed Stanford’s International Human Rights & Conflict Resolution Clinic. She has published numerous articles and papers on international human rights and justice issues. From 2014 to 2022, she served as Executive Editor for Just Security, an online forum for the analysis of national security, foreign policy, and rights. Ambassador Van Schaack is a graduate of Stanford (BA), Yale (JD) and Leiden (PhD) Universities. She began her academic career at Santa Clara University School of Law, where, in addition to teaching and writing on international human rights issues, she served as the Academic Adviser to the United States interagency delegation to the International Criminal Court Review Conference in Kampala, Uganda. She has also been a practicing lawyer at Morrison & Foerster, LLP; the Center for Justice & Accountability, a human rights law firm; and the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.