Understanding Professional Mission and the Essence of State-Legal Reality: the Aspen Institute’s Kyiv Seminar for Legal Professionals

From July 17 to 21, 2024, the Aspen Institute Kyiv, with the support of OSCE projects in Ukraine, held the seminar “Justice, Law, and Society” in the Zakarpattia region. The event brought together 24 participants—professionals from the fields of jurisprudence, public administration, human rights protection, judiciary, academia, and media.

During the seminar, participants engaged in dialogues based on philosophical, journalistic, and scientific-practical texts through the lens of their professional experiences on topics such as:

• Rethinking the nature of the state and “state-citizen” relations in the context of Russia’s military aggression;
• The relationship between the phenomena of “justice”, “honesty”, and “trust”;
• The correlation between moral and legal meanings of concepts;
• “Guilt” and “responsibility”, including the responsibility of Russian citizens for their state’s aggression against Ukraine;
• The appropriateness, nature, and scope of judicial discretion in ensuring fair judicial decisions;
• The right to protest, its grounds, and ways of realization;
• Issues of interpreting legal norms through the lens of establishing legislative intent;
• Forecasting the impact of artificial intelligence development on the future of various types of activities in the field of law;
• The application of constitutional norms as norms of direct action.

A significant part of the seminar focused on the realities of martial law, the legal issues arising in this context, and restorative justice in reintegrating temporarily occupied territories.

Olena Fomina, Director of Program Directions at the Aspen Institute Kyiv, coordinated the seminar.

We sincerely thank our partners from OSCE projects in Ukraine for their consistent support and the participants’ contributions to the dialogue.