PEJ Pillage Handbook

Project Expedite Justice—Ukraine produced this handbook in the implementation of its project Accessing Accountability Avenues for Ukraine. The Handbook supports PEJ’s efforts to establish accountability for the commission of this crime in Ukraine in the context of the ongoing invasion and occupation.

 

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, PEJ has been actively assisting the Ukrainian agrarian sector to document and analyze crimes perpetrated against them. These violations appear to be based on a policy, whether formal or informal, of unwarranted appropriation of grain and other agricultural products. This is primarily for external export, and some of the profits are channeled back to support Russia’s war against Ukraine.

 

In analyzing this information, PEJ has done a deep dive into the war crime of pillage, based primarily on the definition of pillage in the Rome Statute (RS), the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC). While Ukraine became an ICC State Party on January 1st, 2025,1 the Rome Statute applies since 2014 as a result of two letters Ukraine sent on April 9, 2014,2 and September 8, 2015, accepting ICC jurisdiction.3 In addition to ICC cases, the analysis draws on relevant jurisprudence from other jurisdictions, academic books, and legal journals. This Handbook is the result of this investigation.