Ukrainian Studies Lecture: "From Documentation to Accountability: The Truth Hounds Experience"

What can a civil society organization actually do to advance accountability for international crimes? Drawing on more than a decade of Truth Hounds’ work in Ukraine, this talk will examine how documentation can be transformed into investigations, legal analysis, case-building, and engagement with national and international justice mechanisms. It will explore the interaction between Ukrainian proceedings, the International Criminal Court, foreign jurisdictions, and quasi-judicial mechanisms, and how civil society can strategically navigate this “accountability multiverse” to turn information about atrocities into opportunities for truth and justice. The talk will also reflect on the challenges of sustaining accountability work amid increasingly unsustainable patterns of funding allocation and broader geopolitical turbulence. 

Dmytro Koval is Chair of International and European Law at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, co-CEO at Truth Hounds. He has been a research fellow at Stanford University, Central European University, Jagiellonian University, and the Graduate School for Social Research of the Polish Academy of Science. He has lectured at Yale University, Stanford University, Mississippi College, Universidad Mayor de San Andrés of Bolivia, Royal Academy of Belgium, Jagiellonian University, Universidad Panamericana, University of Zurich. Dmytro served as a member of the Ministry of Justice Expert Committee on International Humanitarian Law Implementation. He consulted numerous NGOs on IHL and IHRL implementation in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Ukraine. He also advised the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, UNESCO, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Culture, the Prosecutor General’s Office, and Ukrainian MPs on different aspects of foreign policy and international law. He also participated in numerous projects aimed at training domestic judges and prosecutors in IHL. Between 2021 and 2025 Dmytro represented Ukraine in the UNESCO Protocol 1999 Committee. Dmytro is a member of the board of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winner Center for Civil Liberties. He was a UNESCO consultant who advised the organization on the implementation of The Hague Convention of 1954 and its Second Protocol of 1999.

Co-sponsored by the College of Law, the Center for Global Studies, and REEEC.