Prosecuting Environmental War Crimes: Lessons Learned from Ukraine

Maksym Popov, Andrii Latsyba and Xuchen Zhang

Thank you to everyone who joined Climate Counsel and UCLA Law’s The Promise Institute for Human Rights (Europe) at our ASP24 side event on Prosecuting Environmental War Crimes: Lessons Learned from Ukraine. We were genuinely delighted to see such strong interest in this topic and grateful to all who contributed to a thoughtful, high-level discussion on how to move this conversation forward. 

We presented our forthcoming Manual on Prosecuting International Environmental Crimes, an expanded resource building on identifying and framing environmental war crimes, based on the Guide to Identifying and Framing Environmental War Crimes in Ukraine produced in collaboration with Ukrainian prosecutors. 
 

Our speakers, Maksym Popov, former adviser to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Andrii Latsyba, Legal Counsel at Truth Hounds, Richard Rogers ED of Climate Counsel and Kate Mackintosh ED of UCLA Law The Promise (Europe), moderated by Xuchen Zhang (legal adviser at UCLA Law The Promise (Europe), who all contributed to both publications, offered rare, practice-focused insight into investigating and prosecuting environmental harm in active conflict.  

Their work in Ukraine continues to shape how these cases can be approached elsewhere in and situations in and outside of conflict. 
 

We look forward to continuing this work with partners in Ukraine and across jurisdictions.