Solidarity Justice for and beyond Ukraine

How the international community is intervening in the grave international humanitarian and security crisis unfolding in Ukraine at least since the February 2022 invasion by Russia, and how international law is being employed to enable its resolution, is not only setting a new record but also creating a crucial precedent. Legal and institutional responses to this crisis will serve as a reference point in the future that will be impossible to ignore. It is important to monitor how this experience will inform responses to other comparable crises, what lessons will be learnt from it, and how those lessons would be capitalised on in the coming years. The key challenge in this regard is not allowing international justice and accountability to slide back into the reign of ‘ad hockery’. The situation in Ukraine should not turn into a lonely precedent of exemplary approach to justice, a state of exception that has benefitted from a powerful yet exclusive and short-lived flash of global attention. This would not promote the positive transformation of international law and rather risk further degradation of the international rule of law and multilateral institutions.