William JULIÉ reminds us that it is not rare to try an executor and not a senior officer for war crimes, since other countries have already done it. What distinguishes Ukraine here is the fact that the prosecution is being conducted while the conflict is still ongoing on its territory.
The concomitance of the trial and the conflict does not appear to be a risk for the legality of the trial. It would not be in Ukraine’s interest, which is now under the eye of the world’s cameras, not to offer all the guarantees of the trial. This trial shows that the Ukrainian institutions are still standing.
It is also a reminder that international criminal justice is a subsidiary justice, of complementarity, in its principle. This does not prejudice the need to help the Ukrainians in their investigations.