Lachezar Yanev

About/Bio

Lachezar Yanev is Associate Professor at the Criminal Law and Criminology Department of VU University Amsterdam. He holds a Ph.D. (Tilburg University, cum laude) and a LL.M. degree in international criminal and human rights law (Utrecht University, cum laude). In 2018, he published his monograph, Theories of Co-Perpetration in International Criminal Law (Brill | Nijhoff). Lachezar Yanev has previously worked as an assistant legal officer in Trial Chamber II of the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

Recently Published

Arbitrary Detention in Non-International Armed Conflicts: A Tale of Two Hague Courts

On 3 April 2023, the much-anticipated trial against Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi started at the Kosovo Specialist Chamber (‘KSC’). In its opening statement, the Prosecution told the judges that each accused is criminally responsible of four counts of war crimes – to wit: illegal and arbitrary arrest and detention, cruel treatment, torture and…

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The MH17 Judgment: An Interesting Take on the Nature of the Armed Conflict in Eastern Ukraine

On 17 November 2022, some eight years after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (‘MH17’) was shot down in eastern Ukraine, the Hague District Court delivered a verdict against the four accused in the MH17 Trial: Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinskiy, Leonid Kharchenko and Oleg Pulatov. The first three were found guilty of the charged crimes – viz.,…

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To Custom or Not to Custom: A Battle for the Applicable Sources of Law at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers

Introduction Over the past 5 months, the Prosecutor of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers ('KSC') and defence counsels for multiple accused have been filing submissions on a legal question that is of utmost importance for the work of the Court: to what extent can the KSC apply customary international law (‘CIL’)? A series of jurisdictional motions, the…

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