Prosecution of the crime of aggression still raises tremendous doubts, and legal obstacles are still built by many, instead of being jointly dismantled. The fight for the consistent prohibition and prosecution of the crime of aggression was ongoing in 2025 within different formats: Special Session of the Assembly of States Parties; negotiations of the Statute of the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression Against Ukraine; works of the International Law Commission concerning immunities of foreign officials. At the same time the boundaries of the prohibition of the use of force are consistently blurred.

In this seminar, Professor Patrycja Grzebyk will explain why the crime of aggression is considered as one of the most controversial crimes in international law and she will assess what are the chances for the consistent criminalization of aggression.

About the speaker

Patrycja Grzebyk – Dr Hab. Iur., Associate Professor, University of Warsaw.

She is the author of numerous publications, including The Russian-Ukrainian Conflict and War Crimes: Challenges for Documentation and International Prosecution (Routledge, 2025); Polish Contributions to International Criminal Law (Brill, 2025); Human and Non-Human Targets in Armed Conflicts (CUP, 2022); and Criminal Responsibility for the Crime of Aggression (Routledge, 2013). She serves as Editor-in-Chief of ESIL Reflections and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Humanitarian Action (Springer). She is a Board Member of the European Society of International Law and President of the Network on Humanitarian Action. She is an Expert for the OSCE Moscow Mechanism and a Member of the International Law Association’s Committee on the Use of Force: Military Assistance on Request.

Chair

Dr Maria Varaki is a lecturer in international law at the Department of War Studies, King's College London. Before moving to London she held research positions with the Erik Castren Institute of International Law and Human Rights in Helsinki and the Law Faculty of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She was also an Assistant Professor in International Law at Kadir Has University in Istanbul. Currently she is a Research Associate in 3 Generations of Digital Human Rights, ERC project, 2023-2028, Hebrew University, Faculty of Law.