Good afternoon. Im the president of the Carnegie Endowment for international peace. It is heartening to me to see so many people in the room and know there are many watching online. This event with the prosecutor general of ukraine comes at a critical moment for ukraine and for the world. Its an important moment because terrible and tragic war that began with an invasion for a tremendous amount of time cost huge amounts of money, the cost to reconstruct ukraine at this point runs probably more than 400 billion. But the human toll of the world is far greater and far more important. We think about more than 500,000 whove been injured in some way or killed. Millions of lives that have been disrupted and continue to be disrupted. For those of us who spent time thinking about international, we know one of the bedrock distinctions for International Law is between combatants and civilians. Those distinctions have been routinely disrespected by the invading power in this case, creating a situation that has harmed a great many civilians across the small towns, large cities and everywhere in between. As the world copes with the situation, various different players and countries around the world with International Tribunals have all acted in different ways trying to take stock of what it means for the world to still be grappling well into the 21st century. While the International Criminal court is playing the role in all this and they should have an arrest warrant, the Ukrainian Government itself plays an absolutely critical role. In fact over 80,000 cases of suspected war crimes are being investigated at this moment tragically perhaps many more will be investigated. Prosecutor general andre is with us today to discuss all of this and the efforts that he and his colleagues are making as part of the effort to make sure that the rule of law remains meaningful even in the midst of war. A day in and day out as the war continues, as the fighting continues and efforts to protect civilians continue, they gather. They look around and try to document whats happening. We think about how this event got started. We have an event in this room with Nobel Peace Prize laureates from russia and from ukraine. There was much discussion then about accountability, historical memory, about justice. This event grows out of that in an effort to understand how in a situation is complicated and challenging as ukraine, those words, justice, accountability, documenting for historical memory can be made a reality. Before i begin this conversation with the prosecutor general, i also want to note that the ambassador from ukraine to the United States was unfortunately not able to join us because shes detained and busy in congress continuing discussions about the situation and about how the u. S. And other countries can continue the support to ukraine. But i am very pleased to welcome my friend and colleague the ginsburg professor of International Law at Georgetown University who will speak in a moment on behalf of the American Society for International Law that is cosponsoring this event along with us and the ukrainian embassy. The society of International Law has a longterm in fact we were there at the founding to try to support that and this played an Important Role helping americans understand how day in and day out even as many technologies and social practices change, the commitment to the rule of law and ideally the International Law puts us in this country so welcome, professor schaefer. [applause] thank you, keynote, for the generous remarks. Mr. Prosecutor general, gentlemen, ladies, excellencies, my name is Gregory Shaver and im the president of the American Society of International Law. Our society is the Worlds Largest convene are an expert on International Law and its been here for nearly 120 years. The thousands of members include the top academics, attorneys, judges, government officials and leaders. With Cambridge University press we published a number one journal in the field the american journal of International Law along with other important titles. Each year here in washington, d. C. Where the ambassador has spoken as a keynote we host our annual meeting of over a thousand people and we are having the 118th annual meeting this year scheduled for april. Our mission is to foster and promote the establishment and maintenance of International Relations on the basis of law and justice, and issue that is under strain today. International law is a major important fraud in this conflict. Membership of our societies open to all who value International Law and some 40 of our members reside outside of the United States. I encourage you all to learn more about us given the importance of International Law for ukraine and for the world. For coming here this evening, he mentioned how important the links are between the Carnegie Endowment and asil. We are named after our founders. Andrew carnegies lawyer but more broadly he was the renowned turnofthecentury statesman having served as a senator from new york as well as the secretary of war under president mckinley and secretary of state under president teddy roosevelt. Together with a small handful of others, they founded the American Society of International Law in 1906. A few years later in 1910, they founded this institution, the Carnegie Endowment for international peace. He served as the first president for nearly 20 years and simultaneously as the first president of the Carnegie Endowment. In founding asil, they had a novel idea. They believed that International Conflicts might be resolved through International Law, specifically through international arbitration. As we know, there are many now addressing issues which are central to the ukraine conflict. In 1912, he won the nobel prize, peace prize and he did for the International Law and resolution of International Disputes with International Courts. In closing i would like to say a word about ukraine and what we are doing with regards to ukraine. This december in partnership with the Ukrainian Association of International Law, the Ukrainian Government and Civil Society, we will convene and lead a Conference Time to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the declaration, the universal declaration of human rights and the genocide convention. Leveraging these milestones to inform Public Opinion and catalyze concrete action. International law owes a great deal. Providing the conceptual framework for the crime of genocide, he coined the term genocide and champion to the che adoption of the genocide convention. You may know that the book introducing the word genocide was First Published by the Carnegie Endowment. Developing the concept of crime against humanity for which nazi leaders were held accountable at nuremberg and an international bill of the rights of man he advanced the notion that individuals could be subjects of International Law and set forth many of the concepts that made their way into the universal declaration of human rights. Louis was instrumental out of drafting the un charter and of thestatute of the International Court of justice. But its perhaps best known for the extraordinary human rights advocacy. All three of these men studied law in love eve. All three were members of the American Society of International Law. Thats where many of these innovative ideas both were born and propagated. A delegation of 75 legal experts together with 75 ukrainian counterparts will unpack in december the complex legal challenges that we are identifying together. From our side, the initiative is led by the executive director, and with our International Law fellow. The endowment we were always meant to Work Together and providing legal advice and policy advice with respect to the major conflicts of our time. I hope that you will join us this year if you are available. It is now my honor to call to the stage mr. Prosecutor general. Thank you. [applause] welcome again. Its an honor to have you at the Carnegie Endowment. You have an extraordinary career, youve been a board member of the International Bar association, a parliament member, head of the justice and Safety Committee of the parliament, but this is know doubt particularly challenging as an assignment. Can you share with us a bit about how the efforts to document war crimes fit into president zelenskyys peace strategy . First of all, thank you for organizing this event. Thank you for your time, thank you for your attention. I really appreciate that we will not only discuss the sport of aggression and war crimes committed not only discuss them from the legal point of view but also from i would say the humanitarian point of view because every victim and survivor has his or her name and everything we are doing is for them, for restoring of their dignity, for restoring of their belief that justice is important, that justice exists and that rule of law prevails over the rule of course. What we are doing, not only we in ukraine, i say we meaning not only ask, but everyone who is helping and supporting us in all of our endeavors. We are doing it not only for ukraine victims and survivors of this war. We need to ensure longlasting peace in europe and beyond when this war will be ended we hope by our victory, but this is also our common obligation before us, our children, grandchildren and their grandchildren. We also are doing our job as tribute to those victims and survivors of the previous war and conflict that has not received their matter of justice because of absence of International Instruments or the inefficiency or because of many reasons and we need to remember about them. On some occasions, when we fight for justice, its very difficult. We are doing it once again not only from victims and survivors in ukraine but also for those who still suffer from the same crime and the other parts of the world. Ive been asked sometimes very difficult questions. People from the places of the world where still conflicts and wars are ongoing, asking me, i dont know why me that they are asking why the world is helping ukraine in justice and accountability efforts and didnt protect us in our situation. Its a difficult question. Maybe its not fair that i need to respond to it, but what i tell them first, weve been supportive because we do our best to ensure justice for all victims of this war and if you do everything on your side, anyone that is ready to help assist you will do it with more and more energy and i feel it throughout these 18 months. I feel that we are supported more and more. I hope that we will have time to speak about this in detail. And second, i tell them that with this very wide support, if we will succeed in our situation, then you will have a chance in your countries, in your societies because we will create these successful practices. Very few elements. We are talking about special tribunal. We dont have time to talk about it in detail. What is important first time after trials in nuremberg and far east, first time we tried to make aggressors accountable on the international level. A lot of wars and conflict happened in the world during this 80 years and there was know attempt. Many tribunals, but they were dealing with other war crimes rather than the crime of progression. Now we have itc independence, judiciary institutions, the strongest one that deal with war crimes and genocide, but we understand that International Mechanism that could prosecute and punish those who are the architects and masterminds of these International Crimes. This mechanism is not efficient. We have know hope the Security Council of the United Nations will refer our case. We know that theyve ruled the jurisdiction on the crime of aggression are not efficient. We need to create something new, based on previous experience but to create something new and to be after a Second World War two prosecute and punish the aggressor. Second, youre the first prosecuting now in environmental crimes as war crimes never done before even with a piece of legislation, im not even speaking about the crime, just environmental crimes of war crime and we for one year engaged Huge International support and we are moving together because we have no right to make a mistake. And even our friends and our partners i can say this from the team of prosecutors, we demand their independent work but we are partners for them providing them with evidences in a very efficient manner. Even they have no yet experience and third, Cyber Attacks as war crimes, never done before in history. We need to be prepared because making them accountable we can detour any future aggressor even to try because any future aggressor will know that there is existing mechanisms in place to prosecute and to punish them. Its not of course a guarantee that there will be know wars and conflict. We are not naive, but we need to do what we can do as lawyers not only to prosecute and punish or ensure fair prosecution and trial, but also to detour. And with this i want to say that our discussions with humanitarian elements we will speak about later is very important because we all understand. Our predecessors did a lot in order to establish International System of law and order to prevent future conflicts and prevent International Crimes, but we understand that this system unfortunately is not fully efficient, and this is our obligation once again to do our best to improve, to adjust in parallel with documenting, investigating and prosecuting war crimes of this war. There are those youve probably encountered who ask the following questions. They say it may be important to document, but isnt it more important to get the keys and is in the focus on documenting the atrocities something that may ultimately complicate a Peace Agreement . What do you say to people that say that . First of all, we understand there could be no Justice Without justice. Its impossible. It will be a ceasefire. If we are talking about peace, and this is very explicitly indicated in the formula proposed where justice, the restoration of justice is one of the important elements, and my president always says that we are fighting on both front lines to restore our territorial integrity, independence, and freedom. And to ensure justice for all victims and survivors of these wars. These elements are interlinked and how you can feel at peace from the point of view of person in ukraine who suffered from this war, who suffered from war crimes. Just end of the war and no justice. Looking on the tv screen where perpetrators from russia will will affect them. Im not speaking now about something strange. These are real cases of wars and conflicts of the territory of former yugoslavia then victims of Sexual Violence meet their perpetrators from the street and can do nothing. These are real stories. When someone proposes peace without justice, i will propose these people to come back to a city, Community Country and ask him or herself are you ready to leave the community where people are killing, torturing and raping others . And just letting them do what they want without any punishment, without any order on your streets. Do you want to live in this community and probably everyone will say know. Everyone who has committed a crime should be accountable or isolated if these crimes are very severe and atrocious because these people want to secure communities in a secure space. Why they dont wish us, the ukrainians, to live in a secure community, International Crime means the community where the crimes are committed are our planet. Are we ready to allow International Criminals to live with us, to go to the same restaurant, to go to the same kindergarten . I believe know. Thats why i think that those who want peace without justice just need to close their eyes and imagine this pitcher when killers, rapists are going with them in the same streets and they just al