On taking urgent measures to restore international law and order and overcome the consequences of the international security catastrophe — open statement

OPEN STATEMENT

To the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and inter­gov­ern­men­tal organ­i­sa­tions

From the civ­il soci­ety, media organ­i­sa­tions and asso­ci­a­tions, and media out­lets

of East­ern Europe, Cau­ca­sus, and Cen­tral Asia

On tak­ing urgent and nec­es­sary mea­sures to restore inter­na­tion­al law and order and over­come the con­se­quences of the inter­na­tion­al secu­ri­ty cat­a­stro­phe caused by the armed aggres­sion of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion against Ukraine.

On Feb­ru­ary 24, 2022, the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion launched a large-scale inva­sion into sov­er­eign and inde­pen­dent Ukraine in vio­la­tion of the imper­a­tive norms of inter­na­tion­al law. This inva­sion was a con­tin­u­a­tion of Rus­si­a’s aggres­sion against Ukraine that start­ed in March 2014 with the annex­a­tion of Crimea and the sub­se­quent occu­pa­tion of part of the east­ern ter­ri­to­ries of Ukraine. There is cur­rent­ly a large-scale inter­na­tion­al armed con­flict in the heart of Europe, in which Rus­sia is resort­ing to war crimes as a delib­er­ate­ly cho­sen strat­e­gy of ter­ror against civil­ians. It is clear that this con­flict has posed the great­est threat to world peace since World War II and could lead to the com­plete destruc­tion of inter­na­tion­al law and order and the world’s entry into an era of «war of all against all.» This cat­a­stro­phe became pos­si­ble due to lazi­ness, cow­ardice, and con­formism of inter­na­tion­al insti­tu­tions and organ­i­sa­tions that have failed to effec­tive­ly defend the prin­ci­ples of democ­ra­cy, the rule of law, and human rights. It also became pos­si­ble because by rely­ing con­fi­dent­ly on the inter­na­tion­al stan­dards and norms devel­oped after World War II, we did not pay atten­tion to the fact that the all-encom­pass­ing tech­no­log­i­cal «dis­rup­tion» of recent years could require a sub­stan­tial revi­sion and/or adap­ta­tion of at least some of these stan­dards.

Rec­og­niz­ing the high lev­el of threat to the region and to the world while at the same time being con­fi­dent that the great­est crises cre­ate unique oppor­tu­ni­ties for large-scale reforms and pos­i­tive change, we call on the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and com­pe­tent inter­na­tion­al organ­i­sa­tions to:

І. Demon­strate gen­uine com­mit­ment to the spir­it of inter­na­tion­al law and the nec­es­sary polit­i­cal will to expel the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion from the UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil. A coun­try that has repeat­ed­ly vio­lat­ed the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of the Unit­ed Nations has no legal or moral right to be a per­ma­nent mem­ber of one of its key bod­ies.

ІІ. Rec­og­nize that the UN’s struc­ture and cer­tain oper­a­tional pro­ce­dures (above all, the rules of the work of the UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil) were based on the polit­i­cal real­i­ties of the end of World War II and are neo-colo­nial and unjust by their nature. They have long been unable to uphold inter­na­tion­al law and order. For this rea­son, it is nec­es­sary to imme­di­ate­ly begin the review process of the basic mech­a­nisms of the UN with the aim of sub­stan­tial­ly reform­ing them to effec­tive­ly ensure the preser­va­tion of peace.

ІІІ. Ensure that the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion is brought to jus­tice for the inter­na­tion­al crimes com­mit­ted against Ukraine, includ­ing the crime of aggres­sion and war crimes. Should it be impos­si­ble to engage the Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court effec­tive­ly, it is nec­es­sary to estab­lish a spe­cial inter­na­tion­al tri­bunal to inves­ti­gate and pun­ish the crimes com­mit­ted by Russ­ian offi­cials and mil­i­tary per­son­nel against Ukraine.

IV. Giv­en that Rus­si­a’s armed aggres­sion against Ukraine incor­po­rates a sig­nif­i­cant infor­ma­tion com­po­nent, the afore­men­tioned inter­na­tion­al tri­bunal must con­sid­er hold­ing liable a num­ber of Russ­ian media fig­ures who delib­er­ate­ly, sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly, and mas­sive­ly devel­oped and imple­ment­ed aggres­sive infor­ma­tion oper­a­tions to spread dis­in­for­ma­tion, incite­ment to hatred, pro­pa­gan­da for and jus­ti­fi­ca­tion of Russ­ian aggres­sion against Ukraine. A pro­vi­sion­al list of per­sons to be brought to jus­tice is pro­posed in Annex 1 to this State­ment. A non-exhaus­tive list of ver­i­fied sources and reports with exam­ples and evi­dence of such aggres­sive infor­ma­tion oper­a­tions is pro­vid­ed in Annex 2 to this State­ment.

V. Rec­og­nize that free­dom of expres­sion and free­dom of the media should in no way extend to aggres­sive infor­ma­tion oper­a­tions that are fund­ed, con­trolled, and/or oth­er­wise sup­port­ed by coun­tries with unlaw­ful intent. Imme­di­ate­ly begin the process of inter­na­tion­al con­sul­ta­tions involv­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives of civ­il soci­ety, acad­e­mia, and the media to devel­op a legal frame­work to lim­it and counter aggres­sive infor­ma­tion oper­a­tions at the glob­al and region­al lev­els. Numer­ous tes­ti­monies from Russ­ian pris­on­ers of war in Ukraine clear­ly demon­strate how aggres­sive infor­ma­tion oper­a­tions lead to actu­al armed con­flicts. For the sake of pro­tec­tion of peace, this prac­tice must be erad­i­cat­ed.

VI. Rec­og­nize that infor­ma­tion aggres­sion is not mere­ly a sup­port­ing fac­tor in mod­ern con­flicts but rather a pow­er­ful main com­po­nent of them. Imme­di­ate­ly begin the process of inter­na­tion­al con­sul­ta­tions to devel­op an updat­ed def­i­n­i­tion of aggres­sion for the Rome Statute of the Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court to include aggres­sive infor­ma­tion oper­a­tions.

Being aware of the com­plex­i­ty of these demands, we are nev­er­the­less con­vinced that their suc­cess­ful imple­men­ta­tion is pos­si­ble and nec­es­sary to pre­serve the civ­i­liza­tion­al achieve­ments of human­i­ty and over­come the glob­al secu­ri­ty cri­sis.

With respect and readi­ness to coop­er­ate in achiev­ing the objec­tives set out in this state­ment,

SIGNATURES:

1. Inde­pen­dent Media Coun­cil, Ukraine

2. Detec­tor Media, Ukraine

3. Insti­tute of Mass Infor­ma­tion, Ukraine

4. Cen­tre for Civ­il Lib­er­ties, Ukraine

5. Internews Ukraine, Ukraine

6. Region­al Press Devel­op­ment Insti­tute, Ukraine

7. Sus­pilnist Foun­da­tion, Ukraine

8. Cen­tre for Democ­ra­cy and Rule of Law, Ukraine

9. Human Rights Cen­tre ZMINA, Ukraine

10. Com­mis­sion on Jour­nal­is­tic Ethics, Ukraine

11. Stop­Fake, Ukraine

12. Dig­i­tal Secu­ri­ty Lab, Ukraine

13. Pylyp Orlyk Insti­tute for Democ­ra­cy, Ukraine

14. Human Rights Plat­form, Ukraine

15. Ukrain­ian Media and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Insti­tute, Ukraine

16. Con­sor­tium of the vet­er­an organ­i­sa­tion of the east, Ukraine

17. Ukrain­ian asso­ci­a­tion of media psy­chol­o­gist and media edu­ca­tors, Ukraine

18. The Nation­al Union of Jour­nal­ists of Ukraine, Ukraine

19. Polit­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist asso­ci­a­tion of Ukraine, Ukraine

20. Nation­al media asso­ci­a­tion, Ukraine

21. Euro­pean Val­ues Cen­ter for Secu­ri­ty Pol­i­cy, Czech Repub­lic

22. Legal Media-Cen­tre, Kaza­khstan

23. 101tv.kz, Kaza­khstan

24. Tilshi, Kaza­khstan

25. New Gen­er­a­tion of Human Rights Defend­ers Coali­tion, Kaza­khstan

26. Pro­Tenge, Kaza­khstan

27. Abzhan news, Kaza­khstan

28. Medi­aNet Inter­na­tion­al Jour­nal­ism Cen­tre, Kaza­khstan

29. Factcheck.kz, Kaza­khstan

30. Youtube chan­nel «Just jour­nal­ism», Kaza­khstan

31. Asso­ci­a­tion of Inde­pen­dent Press (API), Moldo­va

32. Cen­tre for Inves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ism, Moldo­va

33. Media–Guard Asso­ci­a­tion, Мoldo­va

34.  Media Alter­na­ti­va, TV8, Moldo­va

35. Sud-Est Media AO (Moldova.org), Moldo­va

36. Cen­trul PAS AO (Sanatateinfo.md), Moldo­va

37. Jur­nal TV, Moldo­va

38. Com­mit­tee for Free­dom of the Press, Moldo­va

39. A.O. „Media & Human Rights”, Moldo­va

40. Inde­pen­dent Jour­nal­ism Cen­tre, Moldo­va 

41.  Inter­act Media, Agora.md, Moldo­va

42. Asso­ci­a­tion of Elec­tron­ic Press, Moldo­va

43. NewsMaker.md, Moldo­va

44. Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ), Belarus

45. Sol­i­dar­i­ty Fund BYSOL, Belarus

46.  Geor­gian Alliance of Region­al Broad­cast­ers, Geor­gia

47. Jour­nal­ism Resource Cen­tre, Geor­gia

48. TOK TV-Geor­gia, Geor­gia

49.  Insti­tute for Devel­op­ment of Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion (IDFI), Geor­gia

50.  Lib­er­al Acad­e­my Tbil­isi, Geor­gia

51. The Greens Move­ment of Geor­gia, Geor­gia

52.  The Asso­ci­a­tion of Busi­ness Con­sult­ing Organ­i­sa­tions of Geor­gia, Geor­gia

53.  Imereti Union of Sci­ence – “SPECTRI”, Geor­gia

54. Research-Intel­lec­tu­al Club “Dia­logue of Gen­er­a­tions”, Geor­gia

55.  Samt­skhe-Javakheti Region­al Asso­ci­a­tion “Tol­er­an­ti”, Geor­gia

56.  Geor­gian Trade Union Con­fed­er­a­tion, Geor­gia

57. Asso­ci­a­tion «Peace­ful and Busi­ness Cau­ca­sus», Geor­gia

58.  Asso­ci­a­tion «Merkuri”, Geor­gia

59.  Black Sea Ecol­o­gist Union, Geor­gia

60.  Geor­gian Insti­tute of Pol­i­tics, Geor­gia

61.  Gori Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre, Geor­gia

62.  Ener­gy Effi­cien­cy Foun­da­tion, Geor­gia

63.  Geor­gian Civ­il Devel­op­ment Asso­ci­a­tion, Geor­gia

64.  New Gen­er­a­tion For Demo­c­ra­t­ic, Geor­gia