Prof. Dr. Stefan Kröll, LL.M., Bucerius Law School, Chairman of the Deutsche Institution für Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit (DIS) (German Arbitration Institute), with the team from the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. Ukraine
IRZ supported the participation of Ukrainian students in the pre-moots for the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot. The pre-moots were held in March 2023 in Berlin (Humboldt Moot Association e.V.) and Hamburg (Bucerius Law School).
Four students from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and two from the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv took part in the event in Berlin, and two students from the National Ivan Franko University in Lviv took part in the same event in Hamburg.
The feedback from the participants was very positive. In their letters of thanks, the participants emphasised how inspiring it was to take part, and they viewed the event as a defining moment in their future legal careers. This experience clearly demonstrated to them the importance of arbitration.
Former Deputy Secretary Dr. Thomas Meyer in the Federal Ministry of Justice during the online expert talk on civil partnerships on 12 April 2023. Ukraine
The action plan for the implementation of the National Strategy in the area of human rights for 2021-2023, which was already adopted in Ukraine on 23 June 2021, according to which the institution of registered civil partnerships is also planned. This issue has also become particularly important and relevant in the current situation, as a large number of members of the LGBTQI community are serving in the ranks of the armed forces in the defence of Ukraine. A corresponding draft law is therefore being prepared.
At the request of the Ministry of Justice of the Ukraine, the IRZ therefore organised an online expert talk on the subject of ‘civil partnerships’ on 12 April 2023. Former Deputy Secretary Dr. Thomas Meyer, who is currently the long-serving Head of Division at the Federal Ministry of Justice and was involved in the drafting of the German Civil Partnership Act served as the German expert. In his first lecture, Dr. Meyer set out the general social and political situation at that time and the emergence and development of the German Civil Partnership Act. In the second part, he discussed the regulations of the German Civil Partnership Act in more detail, and its further revision up to the introduction of marriage for all in 2017.
Representatives from the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, including the Deputy Minister of Justice of Ukraine Dr. Oleksandr Banchuk and Deputy Minister of Justice of Ukraine for European Integration Valeriia Kolomiiets, and representatives of civil society (charity organisation ‘100 Percent Life’ and National LGBTI Consortium #LGBTI_PRO) participated in the online expert talk.
With regard to the planned introduction of a law on ‘civil partnerships’, the Ukrainian contributions to the expert talk referred to the prohibition of discrimination in Article 24 of the Constitution of Ukraine and Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Ukrainian partners emphasised that this does not include same-sex marriage, but a registered civil partnership only. This is because firstly, the Constitution of Ukraine and the Family Code defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and any changes to the Constitution are prohibited under martial law, which is currently in force. Secondly, although the results of recent opinion polls on the right to a registered civil partnership have been extremely positive, we must recognise that this change is fairly revolutionary for a large portion of Ukrainian society.
Furthermore, this development not only applies to Ukraine. Many European countries, including Germany, initially introduced the institution of registered civil partnerships and only over the years have these countries entitled homosexual and heterosexual couples to full equality, although only the institution of civil partnership exists in some countries.
A delegation from the Prosecutor General's Office and the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine paid a working visit on international criminal law to Berlin in the last week of March. The idea for this working visit was prompted by a meeting between the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Andriy Kostin, and the Prosecutor General, Dr. Peter Frank at the G7 meeting of justice ministers in Berlin in autumn 2022.
The Office of the Public Prosecutor and the Federal Ministry of Justice were happy to comply with the Ukrainian request to hold expert talks on investigative methods regarding international criminal law and war crimes. The IRZ organised this work visit, where representatives of the Prosecutor General's Office and the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine were invited to spend three days at the Federal Ministry of Justice and meet their colleagues from the Office of the Prosecutor General and the Federal Criminal Police Office, and with Senior Public Prosecutor, Klaus Hoffmann, who is currently working within the framework of the Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group in Ukraine, to engage in intensive discussions on the relevant issues relating to the investigation of international crimes.
