Ukraine atrocities could spark greater focus on international justice

May 16, 2022 – The war in Ukraine could be a watershed moment for furthering meaningful international justice, according to experts from Harvard University.

In an April 18 Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) podcast called “PolicyCast,” Patrick Vinck, research director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and an assistant professor in Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Department of Global Health and Population, along with HKS’s Kathryn Sikkink, maintained that, with renewed international support, the International Criminal Court can reduce war crimes and help usher in a more accountable world order.

Even if Russian leader Vladimir Putin is not brought to trial, Vinck and Sikkink said that research shows that even simply identifying war crimes and pursuing prosecutions can lower the rates of those crimes.

Listen to HKS’s PolicyCast: Worldwide outrage over atrocities in Ukraine is enabling a new era of international justice