Miami 2022 - A conversation with... Ambassador Beth Van Schaack and Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Andriy Kostin

Dr. Beth Van Schaack was sworn in as the Department’s sixth Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice (GCJ) on March 17, 2022. In this role, she advises the Secretary of State and other Department leadership on issues

related to the prevention of and response to atrocity crimes, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

Ambassador Van Schaack served as Deputy to the Ambassador-at-Large in GCJ from 2012 to 2013. Prior to returning to public service in 2022, Ambassador Van Schaack was the Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor in Human Rights at Stanford Law School, where she taught international criminal law, human rights, human trafficking, and a policy lab on Legal & Policy Tools for Preventing Atrocities. In addition, she directed Stanford’s International Human Rights & Conflict Resolution Clinic. Ambassador Van Schaack began her academic career at Santa Clara University School of Law, where, in addition to teaching and writing on international human rights issues, she served as the Academic Adviser to the United States interagency delegation to the International Criminal Court Review Conference in Kampala, Uganda. Earlier in her career, she was a practicing lawyer at Morrison & Foerster, LLP; the Center for Justice & Accountability, a human rights law firm; and the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

Ambassador Van Schaack has published numerous articles and papers on international human rights and justice issues, including her 2020 thesis, Imagining Justice for Syria (Oxford University Press). From 2014 to 2022, she served as Executive Editor for Just Security, an online forum for the analysis of national security, foreign policy, and rights. She is a graduate of Stanford (BA), Yale (JD) and Leiden (PhD) Universities.

Andriy Kostin was appointed as the Prosecutor General on 28 July 2022.

Prosecutor General Kostin is a graduate from Odesa National University, the Faculty of Law. Earlier in his career, he held several positions in Odesa and internationally as a practicing lawyer. He has worked as an attorney at Polonsky & Partners from 1995 to 1998. From 1998 onwards, he worked as the Deputy Director and later on, as the Director of the law firm “Pravo.” Prosecutor General Kostin was a member of the governing body of the International Bar Association – the IBA Council from 2013 to 2015.

In 2019, Prosecutor General Kostin was elected as a member of the Parliament to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, becoming the Head of the Legal Policy Committee in 2020 and leading its work till 2022.

He has also served as the Chairman of the Subcommittee responsible for the Implementation of the Decisions of the European Court of Human Rights as well as a member of the Ukrainian Delegation to the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) at the negotiations with Russian Federation in Istanbul, Turkey.

In August 2021, President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded Prosecutor General Kostin with the honorary title of “Honored Lawyer of Ukraine” for “the significant professional achievements and years of ethical work, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of independence of Ukraine.”

Bringing to justice all Russian war criminals, upholding the integrity and independence of prosecutors as well as promoting strong and independent Prosecution Service based on the principles of the rule of law and human rights are among the top priorities of the Chief Prosecutor of Ukraine.