United for Justice

Ukraine entered its fifth year of war against Russia following its full-scale invasion in February 2022. The Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group for Ukraine (ACA) calls on the international community to continue its support for accountability programs and mechanisms to ensure justice for victims, accountability for perpetrators and conditions for a sustainable peace in the future.

“United for Justice must be more than a slogan,” said Amb. (Ret.) Clint Williamson, Lead Coordinator for ACA and Senior Director for International Justice at Georgetown University. “The enormity of the atrocity crimes committed by Russian personnel in Ukraine demands justice and resources from international partners to properly investigate and prosecute them. Without accountability, there can be no lasting peace. We also must be United for Justice in our actions.”

"Accountability for crimes against civilians must remain at the centre of our collective response,” said Claudio Pala, Deputy Lead Coordinator of the Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group for the EU. “The scale and systematic nature of violations committed in Ukraine require not only continued documentation, but sustained and coordinated efforts to ensure that investigations lead to credible prosecutions. United for Justice is a reminder that accountability depends on cooperation, consistency, and the resolve of all partners to turn commitment into concrete action."

“In the fifth year of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, Russia continues to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity,” said Wayne Jordash KC, President of Global Rights Compliance and UK Deputy Lead Coordinator of ACA. “ACA remains an important mechanism for supporting Ukraine’s law enforcement agencies in documenting these crimes. GRC’s mobile teams, the field component of ACA, support the prosecutors and law enforcement in building command cases against those most responsible, including the first notices of suspicions for ordering atrocities in Bucha, the first conviction for a crime against Ukraine’s nature reserves, the first indictment in a case of the war crime of sexual slavery and many more. This work is vital. Accountability takes time, but justice must be done.”

"Ukraine is doing something unprecedented in modern international criminal law - it is investigating, prosecuting, and adjudicating atrocity crimes at scale, within its own national system, while the war is still ongoing,” said Oksana Tsymbrivska, Team Leader at EU Project Pravo-Justice. “This is not only about accountability for the past; it is about defining how justice can function in real time, under extreme conditions. If we want the law to prevail over force, this effort must be sustained - because what is being built in Ukraine today will shape the future of accountability far beyond this war."

ACA advances justice and accountability for atrocity crimes in Ukraine by advising and assisting the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine (OPG) and other relevant Ukrainian government agencies on the documentation, investigation and prosecution of war crimes and other atrocities, including genocide, crimes against humanity and aggression.

ACA is composed of five "Implementing Entities" or partner organizations: the European Union Advisory Mission (EUAM) Ukraine; EU Project Pravo-Justice; Global Rights Compliance (GRC); the International Criminal Justice Initiative (ICJI) at Georgetown Law; and the International Development Law Organization (IDLO).