Russian War Crimes In Ukraine A Step Closer To Being Prosecuted In Germany

In October 2023, the Clooney Foundation for Justice (CFJ), a non-governmental organization founded by Amal and George Clooney, filed three cases with the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office, requesting an investigation into crimes committed in Ukraine. The CGJ represents 16 survivors and families of victims. The filings concern crimes perpetrated by Russian soldiers in Ukraine, following Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Since the beginning of the war, CFJ’s Docket initiative, consisting of international lawyers and investigators, has been collecting evidence and preparing submissions detailing crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine. Their work included multiple field investigations in Ukraine as well as extensive analysis of open-source data. The collected evidence has then been used to bring proceedings in Germany under the principle of universal jurisdiction. Over the years, German courts have been leading globally in the efforts to prosecute international crimes under the principle of universal jurisdiction, including crimes perpetrated by Daesh (also known as IS, ISIS, ISIL, Islamic State), a non-state actor, against the Yazidis, an ethno-religious minority community in Iraq.

As indicated by CFJ, all three cases were filed against high- and mid-level commanders identified as likely suspects.