New International Law Reflections
We would like to introduce to you the new series of outputs of the Centre for International Law of the Institute of International Relations Prague: The International Law Reflections. These reflections would expound the pressing actual international law issues to the general public in the Czech Republic. The first two deal with the fate of Nadiya Savchenko and the system of the levels of the terrorist threat to the Czech Republic.
On 22 March, Nadiya Savchenko, a Ukrainian servicewoman was sentenced to 22 years in prison by a court in the Russian city of Donetsk, after being convicted of directing artillery fire to kill two journalists in eastern Ukraine during the hostilities in June 2014, during the course of the “War in Donbass”. The defendant of the case had earlier been captured by separatist forces and taken over to Russian territory by force.
Not surprisingly, the Ukrainian government has stated that they would never accept the verdict as legitimate, expressing strong criticism towards the procedure and Russia in general. Other countries have also expressed their disdain, though employing much less harsh wordings. For example the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also issued a statement on the situation, demanding the release of Nadiya Savchenko, but it has appealed to humanitarian reasons, and has only carefully mentioned Russia’s „international commitments”, mainly referring to the 2015 Minsk agreement, which had been concluded by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany, assisted by the OSCE to work out and uphold a ceasefire...(Tamás Lattmann)
(Photo by Authorized Ukrainian TV channel «Inter» Youtube stream [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], prostřednictvím Wikimedia Commons)
Dne 25. ledna 2016 schválila vláda České republiky materiál Ministerstva vnitra ČR, na jehož základě byl zaveden systém vyhlašování stupňů ohrožení terorismem. Po teroristických útocích v Bruselu 22. března 2016 byl systém poprvé aktivován, tj. ČR přešla z běžného stavu do stavu bdělosti. Tento materiál stručně shrnuje obsah nového systému, srovnává ho se systémy využívanými v jiných zemích a formuluje určitá obecná doporučení...(Veronika Bílková)