The Return of a Long-Forgotten War Crime of Forced Conscription

This article examines the return of a long-forgotten war crime of forced conscription in international criminal law (ICL) by providing a critical overview of emerging domestic case law in Ukrainian courts stemming from the decade-long Russo–Ukrainian war. More specifically, it offers an in-depth legal analysis of a forced conscription case arising from occupied Crimea prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Following the occupation of Crimea, the Russian occupation authorities have organized numerous conscription campaigns targeting Crimean residents for military service in the Russian army under Russian law. Although Ukrainian domestic courts have delivered over 100 war crimes judgments since the very beginning of the war, this is the first case on the war crime of forced conscription to reach the Supreme Court of Ukraine and the first case of its kind since World War II. This case is pivotal, as it provides an elaborate interpretation of the crime of forced conscription as applied by national courts and is built almost entirely on open-source evidence, showing a fundamental shift in how evidence for war crimes trials is collected in relation to atrocity crimes committed in occupied territories

Common law · Criminal law · International law · Military justice · Supreme court · Ukrainian · War crime · World War II · European and Russian Geopolitical Military Strategies · International Law and Human Rights · War, Law, and Justice