With Oleksandra Matviichuk, Julia Geneuss, Denis Laborde, Nathalie Moine, Gwendolyn Sasse and Fabien Théofilakis

Oleksandra Matviichuk is a human rights lawyer and the head of the Center for Civil Liberties, an organisation working to defend freedom, human dignity and democratic values in Ukraine and throughout the OSCE region. She has extensive experience in building horizontal networks that enable citizens to take part in the defence of rights and freedoms. For many years, she has also documented human rights violations and international crimes committed during armed conflicts. She has authored numerous reports submitted to the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the European Union, the OSCE and the International Criminal Court.

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Matviichuk and her partners created the “Tribunal for Putin” initiative. It documents international crimes covered by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court across all regions of Ukraine, including the occupied territories.

Her work lies at the heart of the question raised by this conference: eighty years after 1945, how can the legacy of Nuremberg help us defend justice and human rights in Ukraine today? By documenting crimes while they are still being committed and demanding individual accountability, Matviichuk carries forward one of Nuremberg’s central principles: political and military leaders can be held personally responsible under international law. At the same time, her experience reveals the limits of an international legal order that often reacts too slowly while victims continue to suffer.

In 2016, she received the OSCE Democracy Defender Award for her outstanding contribution to the promotion of democracy and human rights. In 2017, she became the first woman to participate in Stanford University’s Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program. In 2022, she received the Right Livelihood Award and the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize and was recognised by the Financial Times as one of the 25 most influential women in the world.

That same year, the Center for Civil Liberties received the Nobel Peace Prize, and Oleksandra Matviichuk delivered the organisation’s Nobel lecture in Oslo. In 2025, she received the Dutch Auschwitz Committee’s Annetje Fels-Kupferschmidt Award. In 2026, the European Parliament appointed her a Member of the newly created European Order of Merit in recognition of her contribution to European integration and the defence of European values. 

From Nuremberg to Ukraine, her work reminds us that the defence of human rights cannot be separated from the struggle against impunity, and that justice cannot simply be postponed until after the war.

• Julia Geneuss (Universität Potsdam)
• Denis Laborde (CMB)
• Nathalie Moine (CMB)
• Gwendolyn Sasse (ZOiS)

Moderation: Fabien Théofilakis (CMB)

Registration​​​​​​​