The European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, announced in the European Parliament that Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia were joining the joint investigation team on war crimes in Ukraine (see EUROPE 12956/5). The three countries signed an agreement on Tuesday 31 May to join Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine.
“Never in history has the legal community responded with such determination”, said the President of the EU Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust), Ladislav Hamran, at a joint press conference with members of the Joint Investigation Team and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The amendment to Eurojust’s mandate, recently approved by the Parliament and the EU Council (see EUROPE 12959/3), will enter into force on 1 June. This will enable it to collect, preserve and share evidence on war crimes committed in Ukraine.
The six JIT member countries will benefit from the new competences of the agency as it will provide a coordination platform for all material collected in order to avoid, for example, duplication between states. “This will allow us to move from a very fragmented approach to structured approach”, said Ladislav Hamran.
On the work already done by the JIT, the Polish Prosecutor General said that his country had already conducted more than 1,100 interviews with victims or witnesses of war crimes committed in Ukraine.
The Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, said that the ICC’s presence on the ground was being intensified with the opening of an office in Kyiv in the coming weeks.
As for the immediate needs for investigations, he noted that the use of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud technologies, translation and other tools should be strengthened in order to provide authentic evidence to national authorities.
In their conclusions from the 30-31 May summit, the Heads of State and Government reiterated their support for the ongoing war crimes investigations, including the establishment of the Joint Investigation Team. “Russia, Belarus and all those responsible will be held to account for their actions in accordance with international law”, they said.
See the conclusions of the summit: https://aeur.eu/f/1vu (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)