I have traveled here from Kyiv,
where I am a human rights lawyer.
I have been applying the law to defend
people and human dignity for many years.
At present, I am in a situation
when the law doesn't work.
Russia’s troops are destroying
residential buildings, schools, churches,
hospitals and museums.
They’re shooting
at the evacuation corridors.
They're torturing people
in filtration camps.
They are forcibly taking
Ukrainian children to Russia.
They ban Ukrainian language and culture.
They are abducting, raping,
robbing and killing
in the occupied territories.
And the entire UN architecture
of international organizations
and treaties can't stop it.
As a human rights lawyer,
I found myself in a weird position.
When someone asks me how to protect
people from Russian aggression,
I answer,
"Give Ukraine weapons."
I have one question.
How we people, in the 21st century,
will defend human beings,
their lives, their freedom
and their dignity?
Can we rely on the law?
Or does only brutal force matter?
It's important to understand this,
not just for people in Ukraine, Iran,
China or Sudan.
The answer to this question
determines our common future.
Because this is not just
a war between two states.
This is a war between two systems:
authoritarianism and democracy.
Russia wants to convince
to the entire world that democracy,
rule of law and human rights
are fake values.
Because they couldn’t protect
anyone in the war.
Russia wants to convince that a state
with a powerful military potential,
a nuclear weapon,
can break international order,
can dictate its rule to the entire
international community,
and even forcibly change
internationally recognized borders.
And if Russia succeeds,
it will encourage other authoritarian
leaders in the world to do the same.
The international system of peace
and security doesn't work anymore.
And so democratic governments
will be forced to invest their money
not in education, healthcare,
culture or business development,
not in solving global problems
like climate change or social inequality,
but in weapons.
We will witness an increase
of the number of nuclear states,
the emergence of the robotic armies
and new weapons of mass destruction.
If Russia succeeds
and this scenario comes true,
we will find ourselves in a world
which will be dangerous for everyone,
without any exception.
Unpunished evil grows.
Russian military committed terrible crimes
in Chechnya, Moldova, Georgia,
Mali, Syria, Libya,
other countries of the world.
They have never been punished.
They believe they can do
whatever they want.
I've talked to hundreds of people
who survived Russian captivity.
They told me how they were beaten,
raped, packed into wooden boxes,
electrically shocked
through their genitalia,
and their fingers were cut,
their nails were turned away,
their knees were drilled,
they were compelled to write
with their own blood.
One woman told me how her eye
was dug out with a spoon.
There is no legitimate purpose
for doing this.
There is also no military necessity in it.
Russians did these horrible things
only because they could.
Because for now, the law doesn't work.
Although, I trust that it’s temporary.
The war turned people into numbers.
Because the scale
of war crimes grows so large,
that it becomes impossible
to recognize all the stories.
But I will tell you one.
This is a story of 62-year-old
civilian Oleksandr Shelipov.
He was killed by the Russian military
near his own house.
This tragedy received
a huge media coverage
only because it was the first
court trial after the February 24.
In the court,
his wife Kateryna shared
that her husband was an ordinary farmer.
But he was her whole universe.
And now she lost everything.
People are not numbers.
We must ensure justice for all,
regardless who the victims are,
their social position,
the type and level of cruelty
they endured,
and if international organizations
or media are interested in their case.
It's possible.
New technologies allow us
to document war crimes
in a way we couldn't even
dream of 15 years ago.
The experience of Bellingcat
and other investigators
convincingly proved
that we can restore what was happening,
even without being on the spot.
People are not numbers.
We must return people their names.
Because the life of each person matters.
But we still look at the world through
the lens of the Nuremberg trials,
when Nazi war criminals were tried
only after the Nazi regime had collapsed.
But we are living in a new century.
Justice shouldn't be dependent
on how and when this war will end.
We cannot wait.
The global approach to war crime justice
needs to be changed.
We must establish a special tribunal now
and hold Putin, Lukashenko
and other war criminals accountable.
(Applause)
Yes, this is a courageous step.
But we must do it
because this is the right thing to do.
I have been working
with the law for many years,
and I know for sure
when you can't rely on legal mechanisms,
you can still rely,
and always rely on people.
We are used to thinking in categories
of states and interstate organizations,
but ordinary people have much more impact
than they can even imagine.
Immediately after the invasion,
international organizations
evacuated their personnel.
So it was ordinary people
who supported those in the combat zone.
Who took people out
from the ruined cities.
Who helped to survive
under artillery fire.
Who rescued people trapped
under the rubble of residential buildings.
Who broke through the encirclement
to provide humanitarian aid.
Ordinary people started to do
extraordinary things.
And then
it became obvious that ordinary people
fighting for their freedom
are stronger than even
the second army in the world.
(Applause)
That the ordinary people,
at mass mobilization of ordinary people
in different countries,
can change the world history
quicker than the UN intervention.
People in Ukraine survived
also because of you.
When ordinary people in different
countries started to support us.
Someone is collecting donations.
Someone is writing
about what is happening.
Someone is holding rallies,
demanding their governments
to supply Ukraine with weapons.
Someone closed its own business
in Russia because freedom is worth it.
Be that someone.
(Applause)
Support our struggle.
Make our voice tangible.
Take an active position, not just oppose.
There are so many things
which have no limitation in state borders.
Freedom is one of such things
as well as human solidarity.
When full-scale invasion started,
the democratic countries said,
"Let's help Ukraine not to fail."
But we must instead think
about helping Ukraine to win.
There is a huge difference between
"Let's help Ukraine not to fail"
and "Let's help Ukraine to win fast."
(Applause)
Democracies have to win wars
because only the spread of freedom
makes our world safer.
And this is not about Ukraine
laying down its arms.
People in Ukraine want peace
more than anyone else.
But peace doesn't come
when the country
which was invaded stops fighting.
That's not peace.
That's occupation.
(Applause)
And occupation, just another form of war.
Occupation is not about changing
one state flag to another.
Occupation means
torture, sexual violence,
enforced disappearances,
denial of your identity,
forcible adoption of your own children,
filtration camps and mass graves.
I would never wish anyone
to go through this experience.
But these dramatic times
provide us an opportunity
to reveal the best in us.
To be courageous, to fight for freedom,
to take a burden of responsibility.
To make difficult but right choices.
And to help each other.
Now, like never before,
we are acutely aware
of what does it mean to be a human.
And we have no time.
Time for us [is converted into] death.
After all,
you don't need to be Ukrainian
to support freedom and Ukraine.
You just need to be a human.
Thank you.
(Applause)