US Ambassador Beth Van Schaack Engages with Civil Society in Warsaw on Justice and Rehabilitation

On October 15, Beth Van Schaack, the U.S. Ambassador at Large for Global Criminal Justice, met with representatives of civil society organizations in Warsaw to discuss key issues related to international justice.

Professor Hanna Kuczyńska, a member of the Executive Board of the Foundation Sunflowers, represented Project Sunflowers at the meeting. Discussions focused on the effectiveness of investigations into alleged international crimes, the application of universal jurisdiction in Poland, and improving access to rehabilitation support for those affected by crimes committed in Ukraine.

It is with great pleasure and pride that we announce that on October 1, 2024, one of the founders of the Sunflowers Foundation, Dr. Anna Adamska-Gallant, was elected as a judge of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

The European Court of Human Rights is an international court established in 1959. It hears individual or state applications for violations of civil and political rights as defined by the European Convention on Human Rights. Since 1998, it has ruled as a permanent court, and individuals can address it directly. The Court has dealt with hundreds of thousands of applications since its establishment. Its rulings are binding on the countries concerned and have led to changes in the legislation and administrative practice of governments in a wide range of areas. The Court’s jurisprudence makes the Convention a modern and powerful living instrument for confronting new challenges and strengthening the rule of law and democracy in Europe.

The Court is based in Strasbourg, in the Human Rights Building designed by British architect Lord Richard Rogers in 1995. – a building whose image is known around the world. From here, the Court monitors the human rights of 700 million Europeans in the 46 member states of the Council of Europe that have ratified the Convention.

Professor Hanna Kuczynska, a member of the Board of Directors of Project Sunflowers, was a speaker at the Ukrainian International Criminal Justice Week organised by The Center for Civil Liberties in Kyiv.

Mor information about the conference: https://justiceweek.ccl.org.ua/

On July 2, 2024, a training was held in Warsaw conducted by Europol officers for Polish organizations collecting evidence of war crimes in Ukraine.

The training was attended by representatives of the foundations Opora in Poland, the Helsinki Foundation of Human Rights, the Pilecki Institute, and the Sunflowers Foundation. General information about Europol, organizational structure, basic principles of work and how Europol works with evidence of international crimes on the territory of Ukraine were discussed. Officers also presented the method of first contact with crime victims and witnesses, according to the principle: first, do no harm. From the Sunflowers foundation in the training took part prof. Hanna Kuczyńska – a member of the board of the foundation and Kateryna Oleksiuk – a volunteer of the project 

We are extremely pleased and proud to announce that Professor Piotr Hofmański, who has served as a judge at the International Criminal Court in The Hague for the last 9 years (2015-2024), where he was its president for the last 3 years (2021-2024), has become an Ambassador of the Foundation Sunflowers. This unique status is granted by the Foundation’s Council to a person who enjoys widespread authority, identifies with the Foundation’s values and supports the Foundation in its mission.

‘Accepting that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, the drafters of the Rome Statute aimed to eliminate impunity by providing for a system whereby eventual accountability would be secured collectively by the international community’ – Piotr Hofmanski.