Autumn Talks 2018

Annual conference Autumn Talks was conducted by DRA on November 14-15, 2018 in Berlin. This year the topic of the conference was “Justice and Law in Post-Conflict Societies? – European Experiences and Perspectives”. More than 200 participants from Germany, Ukraine, Russia and many other countries attended the event. The invited speakers represented a selected expertise on territorial conflicts in the European context after the World War II – Germany, ex-Yugoslavia, Northern Ireland, Catalonia, Nothern and Southern Caucasus, Ukraine. Different aspects of work with the past and current conflicts in Europe were discussed – among them were questions of documentation of crimes and historical events, legal persecution and reparation for victims, re-integration of population, memory work, cross-cutting relationship between social and political challenges in the process of the peaceful conflict transformation, etc. The main focus was to look for best practices of peaceful transformation in the process of conflict resolution in eastern Ukraine.

Opening the conference Alexander Hug, former Deputy Chief of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Eastern Ukraine noted that the passage of time is not on the side of those who want to end the conflict sustainably and irreversibly. He underlined that the conflict in Ukraine is still in a very much active stage despite the Minsk agreements. Mr. Hug believes that increased participation of the civil society in the negotiation process and increased accountability of the decision makers are necessary to reach the progress in the conflict resolution.

Discussing concepts and tasks of a comprehensive conflict management Alexander Pavlichenko, Director of Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, provided an overview of the current processes in Ukraine, which can lead to development of a transitional justice system. He noted that the draft law on transitional justice is being developed by a group of the Ukrainian human rights NGOs. Also, the documentation efforts are huge and the debate on the compensation of damages have started in Ukraine.

Valentyna Cherevatenko, Chairwoman of the Foundation “Women of Don” mentioned that it is very important not to limit transitional justice to legal aspects, not to exclude the human, personal aspect of the story of the conflict. She pointed out that human perceptions are very much shaped by the politics. The foundation led by Ms. Cherevatenko has recently conducted the research, which revealed that in 2014 and 2015 affected by a strong propaganda, views of people in Donbas were polarised. In the following years, people became disillusioned and less engaged with propaganda narratives. This led to a behavioural change – on the personal level the communication between people with different political views in Donbas has resumed.

Vesna Teršelič, Founder of the Centre for Dealing with the Past, elaborated on her lessons learned from the experience of the wars in former Yugoslavia in 1990s: it is never too early to start thinking about the conditions for peace and justice. Even when the conflict is still going on, people can start debating future set up of the courts, educate judges and law enforcement officers on the international law. Ms. Teršelič reiterated the importance of collecting all possible witnesses and recording the oral history of events. The debates about the conflict will continue for decades but the memories will fade and all the knowledge and the wealth of experience will be lost. It is important not just for potential legal processes, but also for the memory and the future dialogs.

Alexandre Prezanti, International lawyer, Partner of Global Diligence LLP, reflected on the transitional justice processes in several historical contexts. He touched upon the topic of the length and inefficiency of the justice for the victims. While court processes are often delayed in decades personal, memories fade, and a popular understanding of issues becomes truth. In this situation, there is only “half justice” that doesn’t satisfy anyone. In his view, justice delayed is very much justice denied because unfortunately in many cases both perpetrators and victims are long dead when the case finally is debated by the court. Mr. Prezanti mentioned that since the justice has its limitations, it is important to establish inclusive dialog where all the parties of the process will be represented.

Click here to see the video stream of Panel I.

Speaking about the role of the civil society in the process of the conflict resolution Olexandra Matviychuk, Chairwoman of Center for Civil Liberties, acknowledged that on the fifth year of the conflict in Ukraine there is still no answer or strategy. However, she believes that there are already things, which can be done to lay the foundation for peace. They are: freeing of all the hostages to signal the goodwill; engagement of civil society to negotiations on conflict resolution to increase credibility of the process; talk and engage with societies in Russia and Ukraine; and start work on establishing the truth through accountability for the war crimes.

Alexander Cherkasov, Board Member, Human Rights Center Memnorial speaking about the situation in Russia mentioned that it is extremely difficult to talk to the society exposed to propaganda. The resources of the state are significant which is why it is difficult for civil society actors to counteract. He suggested, that the only possible way is to start speaking about the conflict on the human level, preventing replacing people with numbers. Mr. Cherkasov brought one example of such human communication: he believes Oleg Sentsov made strong impact on Russian society this year bringing the issue of political prisoners to public narrative.

Yuliya Erner, Coordinator of Project „Dialog for the Rule of Law and Understanding“, DRA reiterated the importance of the civil society cooperation in times when political dialog on the conflict resolution is in the stalemate. Ms. Erner underlined that the victims of conflict are always concrete people. Thus, it is important to focus on the human dimension. For this, civil society is the main actor of change: local civil society structures must be strengthened and connected to national and international level. Empowered via exchange of knowledge and experience, NGO actors can develop more reciprocal trust. This will give space for joint initiatives and work on common strategies of a conflict resolution. On this way, the influence of civil society actors on political decision making will grow. Further, it is very important to create opportunities for communication between people living on the different sides of the contact line. Only communicating people can see what unites them and start looking for joint ways to change those social attitudes and actions which can be instrumentalised by conflict protagonists.

Commenting on the importance of Ukraine for the German foreign policy Hans-Peter Hinrichsen, Division Head for Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova at the German Foreign Office, confirmed Germany’s commitment to support the reform process and civil society in Ukraine. However, he underlined that Kyiv still has a large homework to do. Mr. Hinrichsen pointed that reforms cannot be delayed due to the conflict. It is important to build trust in Ukraine now, and trust means, for example, fair – that is not corrupt – courts. Unfortunately, by now Ukraine has not demonstrated much progress in this regard.

Click here to see the video stream of Panel II.

More detailed recordings of the speeches of the participants of Autumn Talks will be published on the web-site of the NGO-platform CivilM+ for conflict resolution in eastern Ukraine (www.civilmplus.org). Also, the publication with the conference’ inputs and main lines of discussions is planned.

DRA would like to thank all the speakers and guests for their contributions to the debate. The conference has become possible thanks to the kind support of the German Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt Deutschland), Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, ZEIT-Stiftung, Senat von Berlin.

This brochure was prepared as a result of the Autumn Talks conference to summarise the main issues and views expressed during the discussions.

Languages: Russian, Ukrainian, English

"Justice and Law in Post-Conflict Societies? - European Experiences and Perspectives"

The “Berlin Autumn Talks” conference has in recent years become an integral part of the Berlin Eastern Europe experts agenda and is preparing to welcome an interested public for the 23^rd time, to debate together current socio-political topics, which shape the dialogue between west and east European countries.

Under the title Justice and Law in Post-Conflict Societies? – European Experiences and Perspectives, against the background of numerous on-going territorial conflicts in Europe, this year’s “Berlin Autumn Talks” focuses on possible ways out of the crises and explore European experiences with transitional justice. The many aspects of this term will be covered, a term which, alongside the legal, includes also the social and historical processing of conflicts, as well as being a term that brings into focus the complex interlinking of criminal prosecution, the establishing of truth, and reconciliation.

Also in Eastern Ukraine, there is the need to already prepare viable solutions for a civil co-existence after the end of the armed conflict. Alongside an introductory panel, experiences from the aftermath of wars in the former Yugoslavia, the Northern Ireland conflict, as well as conflict management in the North and South Caucasus will be discussed. Equally, German experiences after 1945 and the handling of authoritarian pasts in Central and Eastern Europe will be reflected upon. In the closing panel discussion, the role of civil society actors will be covered, based on the case studies discussed, as well as opportunities and limits for the post-Soviet space.

Wednesday, 14th November 2018