This week’s panel of LSE IDEAS’ Russia-Ukraine Dialogues will will focus on international crimes – war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity – in relation to the Russia-Ukraine war. What is the difference between physical and cultural genocide? Do the atrocities carried out by Russian forces in Ukraine legally amount to international crimes and if so, who should be tried? What is the capacity of the International Criminal Court in prosecuting such crimes? Join us to hear the answers.
Meet the speakers and chair
Douglas Irvin-Erickson has worked in the field of genocide studies and mass atrocity prevention in DR Congo, Burundi, Cambodia, Myanmar, Ukraine, and Argentina. He is the author of books, chapters, and articles on genocide, religion and violence, human security, international criminal law, and political theory. His first book is titled Raphaël Lemkin and the Concept of Genocide (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), and he is currently writing a second book, Dying in the Age of Thoughtlessness: Genocide, Terror, and Conflict Resolution. Irvin-Erickson is a Senior Fellow with the Alliance for Peacebuilding, a Board Member of the Institute for the Study of Genocide, and a member of the editorial board of Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal.
Gerry Simpson was appointed to a Chair in Public International Law at the LSE in January, 2016. He previously taught at the University of Melbourne (2007-2015), the Australian National University (1995-1998) and LSE (2000-2007) and has held visiting positions at ANU, Melbourne, NYU and Harvard. He is the author of Great Powers and Outlaw States (Cambridge, 2004), winner of the American Society of International Law Annual Prize for Creative Scholarship in 2005 and Law, War and Crime: War Crimes Trials and the Reinvention of International Law (Polity 2007), and co-editor (with Kevin Jon Heller) of Hidden Histories (Oxford, 2014) and (with Raimond Gaita) of Who’s Afraid of International Law? (Monash, 2016). Gerry is a Fellow of the British Academy.
Leon Hartwell is the Sotirov Fellow at LSE IDEAS and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) in Washington D.C. His research interests include conflict resolution, genocide, transitional justice, diplomacy, democracy, and the Western Balkans. Previously, Hartwell was CEPA’s Acting Director of the Transatlantic Leadership Program and a Title VIII Fellow. From 2012 to 2013, he was also the Senior Policy Advisor for Political and Development Cooperation at the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Zimbabwe, where his work included government and civil society engagement, political reporting, peace building projects, and supporting human rights defenders. In 2019, Hartwell completed a joint doctoral degree summa cum laude at Leipzig University (Germany) and Stellenbosch University (South Africa). His thesis analyzed the use of mediation in the resolution of armed conflicts.
More information about the event
Event hashtag: #LSERussiaUkraine
LSE IDEAS (@lseideas) is LSE's foreign policy think tank. Through sustained engagement with policymakers and opinion-formers, IDEAS provides a forum that informs policy debate and connects academic research with the practice of diplomacy and strategy.
This panel is part of LSE IDEAS' Russia-Ukraine Dialogues. Given the recent escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian war (24 February 2022), the conflict continues to be fluid and requires cross-disciplinary analysis. Weekly panels, scheduled for every Tuesday, will bring together in-house and external experts to report on and discuss the war’s impacts on various global issues.