The conference “Human Rights Defenders for Peace and Justice” was held in Vilnius on February 18-20, 2024. Dainius Žalimas, head of the Justice Hub Center for Law and Democracy, took an active part in it.
At the conference, which took place on the eve of the second anniversary of the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, experts and human rights activists focused on documenting war crimes committed not only on Ukrainian soil, but also on the territory of Russia and Belarus.
These crimes, including the abduction of Ukrainian children and illegal detention of Ukrainian citizens, should be recorded and included in the archive of all crimes committed since the beginning of the aggression in order to be considered by a special tribunal on Russian aggression.
Another important topic is the ways of communicating with society about the war and the role and responsibility of human rights defenders in developing the language in which the war should be spoken.
The conference was supported by the European Humanities University, Memorial Vilnius, Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Center for Constitutionalism and Human Rights, and NUPI.